Artisan Decline in Italy: Nostalgia Misplaced as Craft Sector Undergoes Selection, Not Crisis

The Associazione Artigiani e Piccole Imprese di Mestre has published an analysis of Italy's small artisan workshops, revealing a significant decline in numbers: from 1.5 million in 2008 to 1.22 million in 2025. Employment in the sector contracted by over 25% between 2015 and 2025, with the sharpest drops in Marche (-31.3%), Umbria (-29.3%), Emilia-Romagna (-28.7%), and Piemonte (-28.4%). Southern Italy fared slightly better with a -20.2% decline. However, the author, Stefano Monti, argues that the nostalgia for craftsmanship is misplaced because the sector is not in crisis but undergoing a 'selection' process. Some artisan professions are growing, including hairdressers, beauticians, massage therapists, tattoo artists, gelato makers, takeaway pizzerias, web marketers, video makers, and social media experts. Monti identifies three reasons for this selection: consumer choice, the exogenous shock of the Superbonus (which favored larger firms and pushed smaller ones to merge), and economic policy, particularly the allocation of EU funds to training courses. He cites a study by Roberto Perotti and Filippo Teoldi on lavoce.info, which found that between 2007 and 2012 Italy developed about 500,000 training projects costing 7.5 billion euros, but with few outcome indicators. Monti concludes that businesses close when they are no longer profitable, and that sympathy alone is insufficient to sustain them.