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Italy unemployment plunged to 14-year low in 2006
Mar 21, 2007, 11:43 GMT
Rome - Italy's unemployment rate plunged to a 14-year-low of 6.8 per cent in 2006, thanks largely to a rise in temporary jobs and the regularization of foreign workers, Italian statistics institute Istat said Wednesday.
Unemployment in Europe's fourth-largest economy was 7.7 per cent in 2005.
Fourth quarter data for 2006 showed the number of people in employment rising by 1.5 per cent year-on-year to just over 23 million. Nearly half of the new jobs involved short-term contracts, with a further 28 per cent created through the regularization of previously illegal foreign workers.
At 12.2 per cent, unemployment remains persistently high in Italy's poorer southern region. The rate is twice what it is in the central regions and about three times higher than in the industrial north.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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