Page 13 - Investing in Bergamo EN

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PRODUCTION SPECIALISATION

According to the 2011 Census of economic activities, the number of people employed
in Bergamo was 423,883: 382,259 in enterprises, 17,873 in institutions and 23,751
in non-profit organisations. The secondary sector (industry and small manufacturing
businesses) employs almost 200 thousand people (including 50 thousand in the
building sector), of which 156 thousand are employees. The actual manufacturing
industry employs 135 thousand people. The service sector employs the other half of
workers – half of which are self-employed – who mainly work in the commercial and
food service sector (90 thousand employees).
Setting the Italian average to 1, industrial and construction activities have a specialisation
index of 1.5, industry excluding construction, and manufacturing have an index of 1.4.
No indices above the national average were found in any activity of the service sector.
Analytically speaking, Bergamo has a high concentration of employment, even higher
than that of Northern Italy and Lombardy, in the fashion, wood, furniture, paper, chemical
industries and in many of the metalworking activities and, finally in the rubber-plastic
industry, which has the highest indices.
In some cases these specialisations depend on the history of industrialisation in the
territory (for example, textiles, wood-related activities and the construction industry),
in other cases, on foreign investments and the development of districts (rubber).
Mechanics has always accompanied development with the production of machines
and subcontracting of metal products. Most of the development was seen in the fields of
electrical engineering, precision mechanics, and construction of specialised machine
tools. The automotive industry has developed significantly in recent years. For at least
thirty years. Mechanic industry is been the province’s main activity with over 40% of
manufacturing employment.
Vice versa, the relative weakness in the tertiary sector depends on Bergamo’s proximity
to Milan, which is Italy’s largest service provider.
The path of development has seen a simultaneous rebalancing in the weight of both
sectors. The secondary and tertiary sectors have almost the same number of jobs and
their industrial specialisation has increased due to the strengthening of the industrial
production structure, which is now stronger than the Italian one and much of Europe.
Jobs in the industrial sector continued to grow until 2008, even if characterised by
increases gradually on the decline. The crisis of 2008-2009, bursting of the housing
bubble and weakness of the domestic market led to a loss of nearly one million jobs
(-4.2%), all within the industrial sector. Bergamo limited its losses (-1.3) but, even
in this province, half of the decline occurred in the manufacturing industry and the
other half in the construction industry with a loss of 18,500 jobs, partially offset by an
increase in services (6,000).
A moderate recovery began in 2014 driven by export companies, which also had a
positive effect on employment.