Employment: right on target

The Emilia-Romagna labour market features strong points and qualities among the best nationally and on a European level. In 2007, the rate of employment in the region is at 70.5%. The level is higher than the national average and already well over the objectives set for 2010 by the European Union. The rate of unemployment in 2004 reached 3%  (Istat, 2007)

Work: the upcoming sectors
Emilia-Romagna boasts a strongly developed and qualified advanced private tertiary sector, made up of professional, technical and consulting practices, assisting businesses in the development of entrepreneurial ideas, sales of products, marketing, sourcing of funds for investments and technological innovation.
The development of sectors and jobs linked specifically with the economy of knowledge has aided, also in Emilia-Romagna, an increase in new self-employed work with professional characteristics. This tendency, for example, is at the base of the development of Emilia-Romagna of sectors such as information technology, multimedia, and more generally, of businesses operating in the new economy.

Immigrants: integration completed
The Emilia-Romagna employment market shows an increasingly strong presence of immigrant workers now perfectly integrated in the social fabric: there are over 317,000 foreigners present in the region, equal to 7.5% of the residents. Of these, 150 thousand are employed full time. The level of immigrant entrepreneurship in the region is very high: Emilia-Romagna has 17,522 small business owners and partners, an impressive figure that represents 45% of the north-east Italian total and 12.3% of the national share (CNEL 2007).