«Wages in the South are increasingly poor, a sign of precarious and poorly paid work». This is according to a survey by the National CGIL Economy Office based on INPS data. In 2024, an employee in the private sector (excluding the agricultural and domestic sector) had an average annual gross salary at a national level of 24,486 euros, compared to 15,880 for those who work in Calabria. If, however, we take as a reference a full-time, permanent employee who has worked at least a full year, the average national gross salary rises to 39,563 euros, but for Calabrians it stops at 31,618.
«Worrying data but they do not surprise us – comments the General Secretary of CGIL Calabria, Gianfranco Trotta -. In the South, the average paid days are fewer, there is a greater incidence of atypical work, a greater weight of economic activities with lower wages. In the South, in fact, fixed-term work concerns 34.5% of workers (against 26.7% at a national level), part-time 43.6% (against 33.0% nationally), discontinuous work 56.5% (against 45.6% nationally)”.
«For some time – continues Trotta – we have been urging the introduction of the minimum wage to guarantee decent and healthy work, combat pirated contracts and wages that are too low and, again, to align with European directives. Calabria pays the price of precarious connections and infrastructures which discourage companies from investing in the area. The Zes could have proved to be an excellent asset for our region – the secretary points out – but its expansion to the whole of the South penalizes us. With the same tax breaks, entrepreneurs go where the logistics are better and where it is easier to move and not where the infrastructure network is a sieve. In light of the stops by the Court of Auditors on the Strait Bridge project, which prompt reflection, we ask the government – he concludes – to give the right attention to the infrastructure of the South”.