Italy loses 434,000 craftsmen in ten years

Finding a plumber, locksmith or electrician has become more complicated in many parts of Italy. There are almost 434,000 fewer craftsmen in the country than ten years ago: there were 1.7 million in 2015, and by 2025 this number has fallen to almost 1.3 million. A 25.1% decrease, according to the CGIA study office, the Association of Craftsmen and Small Enterprises of Mestre.

The number of businesses is also decreasing. After reaching a peak in 2008, when there were almost 1.5 million, the number of active craft business premises has fallen to 1.22 million in 2025. In ten years, no region has managed to avoid the decline. The strongest contraction is recorded in the Marche region, where the number of craftsmen has decreased by 31.3%, followed by Umbria with 29.3%, Emilia-Romagna with 28.7%, and Piedmont with 28.4%.

In the South, the contraction is more limited, at 20.2%. Even the last available year confirms the trend: between 2024 and 2025, the province with the largest percentage decrease is Pesaro-Urbino, with 8.3%, followed by Mantua with 7.9%, and Bologna with 7.5%.

The CGIA notes that part of the decrease is due to mergers and acquisitions following the crises of 2008-2009, 2012-2013, and 2020-2021. Fewer businesses in some sectors have meant larger companies on average and greater productivity. This has happened especially in goods transport, metalworking, plant installation, and fashion.

The most difficult issue concerns the future. The population of craftsmen is ageing, while the number of young people choosing these trades is decreasing, and the demographic decline makes replacement even more complicated. According to the CGIA, within a decade finding a plumber, locksmith, electrician or window fitter for a repair could become "an extremely difficult operation".

The CGIA identifies a cultural problem: "For fifty years, manual work has suffered from cultural devaluation that continues to have an impact". To intervene, it advises restoring "centrality to vocational institutes that, not too many decades ago, were a decisive engine of national economic development", and which, the association claims, have "slipped to the rank of second-rate schools, or even third-rate schools".

The crisis also affects the economic model that for decades has supported local shops and workshops. The depopulation of small municipalities contributes to reducing demand that is already struggling due to large-scale distribution and online trade. Small businesses are also sensitive to short-term sales declines, which can compromise an already weak financial capacity.

Now, artificial intelligence is arriving to change the sector. According to the association, it can increase the distance between those who will be able to use it and those who will continue to work "only with their hands". A carpenter can use it to quickly process a project, a bricklayer to prepare a quote, a ceramicist to manage communication.

In these cases, the CGIA notes, technology "does not waste time: it returns it". Craftsmen would therefore be at an advantage if they are willing to integrate artificial intelligence into the most repetitive tasks of their trade, becoming more efficient. For these jobs, the competitor of the next decade may not be a machine, but the absence of someone willing to learn them.