In ten years, the credit granted by banks to small businesses has collapsed by 32%. The First Cisl notes that today, on the occasion of the World Day of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, has published a report drawn up in collaboration with the Fiba Cisl Foundation. According to the analysis of the Syndicate of Banks and Insurance, between 2011 and 2021 direct loans to small businesses decreased by 32%, a decrease three times compared to that recorded for the total of residents in Italy net of financial institutions (-10.9%).
A figure that does not seem to have affected employment levels is the comparison with other countries of the European Union: in Italy the share of workers employed by companies under 10 employees is much higher (42%) than the average (29%) but above all compared to Germany (19%) and France (23%).
The resilience of the fabric of small businesses is also demonstrated by the total number of employees, which from 2012 to 2020, despite the problems of access to credit, recorded a minimal variation. If you take again the reference companies under 10 employees the number has been reduced marginally, but above all it remains almost double that of large companies. The updated data to 2020, illustrated in the report, say that the active companies with less than ten employees in Italy are 4,211,615, with 7,489,913 employed out of a total of 17,137,906 employees. According to the First Cisl to weigh on the economic fabric of Italian micro and SMEs is the closure of 8,441 banks from 2015 to 2021, throughout the country, a percentage equal to about 28% of the total.