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An exodus of educated Italians searching for better opportunities abroad is exacerbating the economic strain of a rapidly ageing labour force, the governor of the Bank of Italy has warned. 

Fabio Panetta said that Italy must take more action to retain its human capital — and ensure young people are productively employed to support growth.

“Attractive employment opportunities need to be created for the many Italians who leave the country in search of better prospects,” said Panetta on Friday. 

About 156,000 Italians left the country last year for Germany, Spain, the UK and elsewhere, a 36.5 per cent increase over the number who emigrated in 2023.

At just under 191,000, the total number of people who left Italy in 2024 — including 35,000 long-term foreign residents, mainly Romanians returning home — was at the highest level in a quarter of a century, according to Italy’s official statistics agency, Istat.

Italy’s population decline is among the most acute in Europe, after decades of plummeting birth rates. At present, about a quarter of Italy’s 59mn people are over the age of 65, while just 12 per cent of the population are children aged 14 and under. The working age population is forecast to drop by another 5mn people by 2040.

Emigration is adding to the pressure. More than 1mn Italians left the country to settle abroad between 2014 and 2023, with the number of annual departures rising steadily through the period, according to Istat. Just over half that number moved back home during the same period after living overseas.

Of those who emigrated, more than a third — 367,000 people — were between 25 and 35-years-old, including 146,000 college graduates. Just 113,00 Italians in the same age range returned, of whom less than 50,000 were college graduates.

“The migration balance of young graduates has been consistently negative, with a net loss of about 97,000 over the decade, a significant deficit of qualified human capital,” an Istat report published last month on the state of the country said.

The exodus of educated youth has only gained momentum with time. In 2014, only one in three Italian emigrants were college educated, while in 2023 — the last year for which such detailed breakdowns are available — half of those who left held at least a college degree, Istat said.

Recent years have also seen the proliferation of Italian-language online portals, such as one from Sweden-based recruitment agency Workwide, offering opportunities for Italians to work abroad in Europe. More far-flung places like Canada are seeking people to fill jobs like nurses, drivers and accountants.

Panetta said one factor driving people overseas was that real wages in Italy are currently below the levels they were in 2000, pushed down by the inflationary impact of the post-pandemic period.

“Real wages have grown far less than in other major European countries,” he said. 

Istat has estimated that the projected drop in Italy’s working age population could lead to an 11 per cent drop in GDP, although Panetta said Italy could help fill its worsening labour shortages by recruiting more workers abroad.

“Legal immigration can make a significant contribution especially in the construction and tourism sectors, which are experiencing a growing shortage of labour,” Panetta said.