Impact of the 2008 and 2012 financial crises on the unemployment rate in Italy: an interrupted time series approach

One of the most widely recognized indicators of a recession is a rising unemployment rate. In Italy, from the late nineties this indicator continuously decreased over time until 2007. The aim of this paper is to study the immediate impact and persistence of the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2012 European sovereign debt crisis on the Italian unemployment rate by using a segmented regression analysis approach of interrupted time series. Quarterly data were collected from the website of the Italian National Institute of Statistics. In particular, the impact of the financial crises was evaluated across some subpopulations of interest by stratifying unemployment rate for age groups, in order to highlight the effects on youth unemployment, gender and macro-regions. Finally, to provide a more in-depth analysis, some information on the effects of the two economic recessions was also given about the people not engaged in Education, Employment or Training.