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01 August 2020 Four out of 10 micro enterprises, just under 1.7 million businesses, risk closure due to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 emergency. The Cgia notes this on the basis of Istat's results on the trend of the Italian economy. "We refer - explains Paolo Zabeo - to that middle productive class made up of service companies, shopkeepers, craft shops and VAT numbers with less than 10 employees who have not recovered since the lockdown and have now expressed their intention to close forever.

The sectors most vulnerable to the crisis that emerged from this survey were bars, restaurants, hospitality businesses, small businesses, the culture and entertainment sector. In the production sector - adds Zabeo - the difficulties have affected above all the furniture, wood, paper and printing sector, as well as textiles, clothing and footwear. A deemed irreversible situation that is causing many small business owners to finally throw in the towel. "

The Cgia is asking that the decree of August micro commercial reality and more fragile productive emergency Covid be helped to stay alive, for example, through a further and more robust disbursement of grants, and then with the cancellation of the fiscal deadlines, at least until the end of 2020.

Unfortunately, the forecasts do not suggest anything good. Cgia recalls that in 2009 the GDP had fallen by 5.5%, while the unemployment rate in 2 years has gone up from 6 to 12%. With a GDP that in the brightest forecasts this year should drop by 10%, almost double the contraction recorded in 2009, the danger that the number of unemployed increases exponentially is very high.

"The closure due to the crisis of many small businesses", stresses the CGIA, "also has social consequences that are also negated ve. When a small shop or artisan shop definitively closes the shutters, they lose knowledge and know-how that are difficult to recover and the quality of life in that neighborhood deteriorates visibly. In addition, there is a lack of socialization point, there is less security, more degradation and the quality of life of that place deteriorates. In addition to giving liquidity, cutting taxes and easing bureaucracy, manual labor must be reevaluated. Over the past 40 years there has been a cultural devaluation that has been appalling. Through the school reforms that have taken place in recent years and, above all, with the new Consolidated Law on apprenticeship, some important steps have been taken in any case. But that's not enough. It is necessary to make a real revolution to restore dignity, social value and fair economic recognition to all those professions where knowing how to do it with one's own hands is an additional virtue that we risk guilty of losing. "In this regard, Cgia cites another "paradox: while many micro businesses close, many sectors, at least until recently, denounced the difficulty in finding qualified personnel. There are realities ", says the association," where until last February it was hard to hire drivers of heavy vehicles, drivers of numerical control machines, turners, millers, painters and sheet metal hammers. Not to mention that in the building world it is increasingly difficult to find carpenters, installers and tinsmiths ".