Italy is a country that is known world wide as a
country with a pretty stable and successful economy. According to the CIA World Factbook, Italy has the seventh
largest economy in the entire world. In addition to its size, Italy’s Gross Domestic
Product is ranked as the fourth highest in Europe. Italy’s labor force is made up of 25 million citizens, and
has an unemployment rate of 7.6% which .7% better than the United States’
unemployment rate. The labor force
of Italy tends to migrate toward occupations in services, which include jobs in
areas such as maintenance, construction, education, finance, and many
more. Jobs in industry are the
next highest occupied jobs, and then lastly, accounting for 4% of the occupied
jobs is work in agriculture.
In
regards to their foreign policies, Italy imports and exports many goods to
stimulate their economy. Italy’s
main exports are engineering products, textiles, and motor vehicles. Italy’s main export partner is Germany. Italy imports a lot of chemicals,
transport equipment and energy products, again, mainly from Germany. Compared to most countries, Italy
relies heavily on their imports and exports to stimulate their economy.
Currently,
Italy is dealing with a lot of economic struggle. According to Jordan Weissmen (2011) Italy’s debt is turning
into a serious problem not only for themselves, but for the rest of the
world. Weissman also reveals that
there are four specific reasons why the Italy economy is such a disaster right
now. The first reason is because
of the debt. They are second in
Europe only behind Greece, and their debt is more than double than the
countries GDP. This means that
Italy’s economy is drastically declining and has negative growth. The second reason noted for the recent
downfall of the Italian economy is that the productivity has significantly
declined compared to the rest of the world. Italy is badly struggling while having to compete with Asian
countries and the USA in terms of productivity levels. A third reason that Weissman points out
is that there is too much corruption in the government. This puts Prime Minisiter Monti in a
tough situation as he tries to rally his country out of this debt. Lastly, the southern part of Italy is
where most of the slacking occurs.
Weissman reveals that the northern and central parts of Italy have a 40%
higher GDP than the south does.
This only spells trouble.
Thanks for reading!
Weissman, J.
(2011). 4 reasons why Italy’s
economy is such a disaster. The Atlantic. Retrieved 2/20/12.
www.theatlantic.com
CIA World Factbook; Italy; Economy". CIA.
2009-03-19. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
Your economy blog made for an interesting read. I had always known the northern half of the country was well known for its manufacturing and fashion industries, but didn’t realize that the economies of the north and south differed by as much as 40% in terms of GDP.
ReplyDeleteDoes this financial dynamic affect African immigration patterns to different parts of Italy, and has the retraction of the economy resulted in decreased African immigration as a whole? Also, in which industries do most African immigrants enter once they make the move to Italy?