Sicily’s economic growth continues. The economic analysis of the Unioncamere Sicilia Economic Observatory highlights how in the first quarter of 2026 (latest available data) the island recorded the third largest increase in active businesses on a percentage level and the fourth on a numerical level. In fact, the balance between new registrations and terminations is active for 638 companies, with a growth rate of 0.15% and with an employment figure of one million 189 thousand 632 employees.
The Sicilian contribution to the country’s economy
To understand the importance of the Sicilian contribution to the country’s economy, just think that the positive balance for the whole of Italy is just 690 companies, with rich Lombardy stopping at a positive balance of 722 units in a national context that sees as many as 12 regions closing the quarter with a negative balance. Furthermore, the brilliant Sicilian performance in January-March of this year continues the pressing trend already expressed in the first quarter of 2025, when the island established itself in the Italian panorama with a positive balance of 697 companies.
The health of businesses
In the same year the birth rate of businesses in Sicily was 5.8% compared to a mortality rate of 3.95%; women’s businesses represent 24.4% of the regional economic fabric and youth businesses 8.9%, those managed by foreigners 6.4%. In Sicily, the sector that showed the greatest liveliness in the first quarter of this year was that of innovative businesses (3,545 registrations against 600 cancellations, reporting a positive balance of 2,945); in the same period the energy sector doubled and accommodation services, computer programming services and real estate also performed well. Furthermore, the periodic economic analysis of the “Guglielmo Tagliacarne” institute of the chamber system, referring to the period March 2025-March 2026, presents indicators that are almost all positive and better than the national average: in eight cases out of ten they are higher than the country average. The entrepreneurial fabric is stronger: the number of innovative startups is increasing (+10.6% versus -3.5% of the national trend); the number of third sector companies is growing more (+7.1%, +6.2% the national figure).
The job market
Regarding the labor market, the number of people employed will increase between 2024 and 2025, +0.9% (+0.8% in Italy), while the increase from 2021 is as much as +10.3%; there is also a positive curve in hiring in non-agricultural companies between June 2025 and June 2026 (+0.4%, Italy -0.8%); the number of hours of redundancy between the first quarter of 2025 and the same period of this year fell by -3.3% (-23.9% nationally).
Savings and credit
Good news also arrives on the front of the propensity to save of families and businesses and of credit: bank deposits and postal savings between December 2024 and December 2025 were implemented by +4.7% (+3.2% in the country) and the consistency of loans to businesses, in contrast to the credit crunch recorded in the peninsula, increased by 3% between December 2024 and December 2025 (-0.4% the national trend). In this regard, the “Tagliacarne” also analyzes the disposable income of consumer families, which in 2024 in Sicily increased by +14.8% compared to 2021, with income from employment growing by +19.7% and accounting for 52.5% of the economic availability of consumer families.
The real estate exploit
Finally, the sale of homes between 2024 and 2025 had an exploit of +7% compared to +6.4% at the country level. “These data – comments Giuseppe Pace, president of Unioncamere Sicilia – are the tangible result of the policies of the regional government presided over by Renato Schifani, which from the beginning were based on support for the real economy and the entrepreneurial system, which needed not just random aid, but tools to remedy atavistic weaknesses of the entrepreneurial fabric, to face the effects of international crises and to compete thanks to favorable infrastructural conditions. The government has also favored an appropriate synergy with Unioncamere Sicily and the chamber system, and this contributed to the results thanks to the initiatives carried out with the commitment of the departments of Productive Activities, Tourism, Infrastructure, Environment and Cultural Heritage”.
Calls and resources
Furthermore, according to Pace, “the huge resources made available with the multiple tenders and with the measures entrusted to Irfis-FinSicilia and now also to Irca have stimulated the propensity to invest in businesses, which have responded by accepting the challenge, which today seems to have been won in the first part of the race. Just look at the boom in seasonally adjusted, more cultural and naturalistic tourism, the increase in maritime passenger and freight traffic, the challenge of the Blue economy, innovation and to the energy transition, to investments for the relaunch of ports, utilities, agriculture, airports projected towards privatization and the infrastructure network”.