ROME, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Unemployment has dropped but it is almost three times higher in the south than in the north, Italian statistics institute ISTAT said in a report out Tuesday.
Overall unemployment fell by 1 percentage point to 11.2 percent in the last quarter of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016, ISTAT said. However, that figure stood at 19.3 percent in Italy's chronically impoverished southern regions, against 6.9 percent in the wealthier, more industrialized north, according to the report.
As well, unemployment was three times higher among the young, with 35.2 percent of Italians aged 15-24 out of a job -- including almost 40 percent of young women, according to ISTAT.
Political observers say the persistent gap between north and south and young and old were reflected in the outcome of Italy's March 4 general election, which saw the advance of euroskeptic, rightwing forces.
The populist Five Star Movement, which pledged to introduce universal income, prevailed mostly in the poorer south while the rightwing anti-immigrant League, which promised a 15 percent flat tax, succeeded mostly in the wealthier north, where the economy is made up of heavily taxed small and medium businesses.
In another breakdown, ISTAT numbers showed unemployment was higher among people who only have a high school diploma (15.1 percent) compared to university graduates (6.3 percent).
ISTAT analysts saw an "expansive macroenonomic picture", with Italian gross domestic product (GDP) growing by 1.6 percent in 2017 year-on-year, lagging behind eurozone growth of 2.7 percent.
The ISTAT number is more optimistic than that of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), whose Interim Economic Outlook report, also out on Tuesday, saw Italian GDP adding 1.5 percent in 2017.
The Mediterranean country's economy should expand at the same rate in 2018, and slow down to 1.3 percent in 2019, according to OECD.
