The rate hit its lowest since 2018 in the first quarter of 2026. But Bergamo stands at 1.3% and Agrigento at 19.8% — fifteen times higher.
In Bergamo, out of every hundred people in the labour market, barely more than one is out of work: the provincial unemployment rate stands at 1.3%. In Agrigento, Sicily, it is 19.8% — fifteen times higher. That gap is the real context for Istat's release on the first quarter of 2026: national unemployment at 5.4%, the lowest in a quarterly series going back to 2018, down from 6.8% a year earlier. The record is the headline. The actual story is that 5.4% is an average across labour markets that have almost nothing in common.
Geography doesn't follow the north-south script to the letter. In the first quarter of 2026 Abruzzo, with unemployment at 4.4%, beats Piedmont (5.4%) and Liguria (5.6%): a southern region ahead of two regions of the industrial north. Then the script resumes. Campania remains at 11.2%, four times Lombardy's 2.8%; the Aosta Valley combines the lowest unemployment (2.6%) with the highest employment rate, 72.3%. One caveat is owed: the quarterly regional series covers twelve regions. For the others, including Veneto and Emilia-Romagna, comparison is only possible on annual provincial data.
Unemployment rate, ages 15-74, raw Istat labour force survey series. Twelve regions with quarterly data. Source: Istat, processed by DatiItalia.
The unemployment rate, though, only counts those actively looking for work. The employment rate counts those who have a job — and that is where the distance widens. In Bologna, 74.2% of people aged 15 to 64 are in work, nearly three in four. In Taranto, 39.7%: fewer than four in ten, little more than half the Bologna figure. Naples holds both unwanted records at once, employment at 43.7% and unemployment at 17.9%. Milan, with 72.8% in work, lives in a different country.
Employment rate, ages 15-64, 2025 annual average. Source: Istat labour force survey, processed by DatiItalia.
Employment rate, ages 15-64, 2025 annual average. Source: Istat labour force survey, processed by DatiItalia.
The long view shows both the scale of the change and its limit. In the first quarter of 2018, unemployment stood at 11.6%: in eight years it has fallen to less than half. Employment, over the same period, rose from 57.6% to 62.5%. Less than five points. Italy has halved its unemployed without filling jobs at anything like the same pace: the difference is made up largely of people who have stopped looking for work, and whom neither rate captures. One final note: there is no municipal figure. The labour force survey stops at the province, so to check on your own town you need a different indicator. The closest one is average taxpayer income, below.