Panel 1
Giovanni Finocchiaro, Mariangela Soraci
The indicator measures the number of industrial enterprises in the strict sense, their local operational units, and the employed workforce, providing a snapshot of the national production structure and its evolution.
In 2022, the number of active enterprises in the industrial sector (in the strict sense) amounted to 390,580, a figure that remained essentially stable compared to 2021 (+0.02%). The territorial distribution remains polarized, with over half of the enterprises concentrated in the northern part of the country. In terms of employment, the number of workers totaled 4,137,637, marking a 1.5% increase compared to the previous year. Overall, the manufacturing sector remains the dominant component, accounting for over 90% of industrial employment.
The indicator measures the number of industrial enterprises (in the strict sense) operating during the reference year, as well as the local units engaged in production activities and the associated workforce.
According to the ATECO 2007 classification—2022 update, the industrial sector in the strict sense includes the following sections of economic activity: Section B: Mining and quarrying; Section C: Manufacturing; Section D: Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; Section E: Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.
Pursuant to Article 2 of Regulation (EU) 2019/2152, an “enterprise” is defined as the smallest combination of legal units that constitutes an organizational unit for the production of goods and services, benefiting from a certain degree of decision-making autonomy, particularly with regard to the use of its own resources. Each enterprise may engage in one or more activities and operate in one or more locations; each production site is defined as a local unit. The number of employed persons is calculated as the annual average of both employees and self-employed workers.
The purpose is to quantify industrial enterprises, productive local units present in the territory, and the number of employed persons. This descriptive and contextual information offers a representation of the state and demographic evolution of one of the most impactful anthropogenic (economic) drivers on the environment and human health.
Since the 2021 survey cycle, the legal framework is governed by Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, and the related Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197, which replaced the previous Regulation (EEC) No 696/93.
The general objectives of the indicator remain unchanged: to monitor the structure and demography of industrial enterprises as a key economic factor with environmental and health impacts, in line with SDG 8 and SDG 9 of the 2030 Agenda.
Panel 2
Statistical Register of Active Enterprises (ASIA - Enterprises) Registro statistico delle imprese attive (ASIA - Imprese)
Actions are to introduce additional layer of analysis of enterprises according to their size.
Data quality assessment
ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics)
ISTAT, Registro statistico delle imprese attive (Asia-Imprese) accessed at the database http://dati.istat.it/ under the headings: Enterprises/Structure/Companies and Employees and Local Units and Employees.
National
Regional
2012-2021
Indicator assessment
The basic data are presented as-is or following minimal mathematical processing (e.g., year-on-year percentage change, geographical and sectoral percentage composition).
At the end of 2022, the Italian industrial production system showed signs of stability following the post-pandemic adjustment phase. The number of enterprises remained virtually unchanged (Figure 1, Table 1), while employment increased by about 600,000 units (Table 5). The North-West accounts for 29.4% of enterprises and 36.8% of employment, followed by the North-East (24.3% of enterprises, 29.9% of employment) and the Centre (20.7% of enterprises, 18.3% of employment); the southern and island regions together make up just over a quarter of the business base and 15% of total employment (Table 2). The employee-to-local unit ratio stands at 9.3 (Table 3), confirming the slight trend toward larger average business size observed over the past decade.
From an environmental perspective, however, this picture of stability does not yet indicate a clear shift toward lower-impact production models: the current status can therefore be considered broadly neutral, with improvements confined to the most innovative sectors.
Between 2012 and 2022, the industrial sector shrank by over one in ten enterprises (–10.8%) (Table 1), with a similar decrease in local units (–10.3%) (Table 3). However, industrial employment has returned to early-decade levels (+0.04%), thanks to the recovery in recent years that offset the losses caused by the health crisis (Table 3).
Although the number of manufacturing enterprises declined by 12% (Table 3), employment in the sector recovered, while the energy sector showed a structural expansion of local units (+37% over the decade). The overall result is a slight increase in the employee-to-local unit ratio, which rose from 8.35 to over 9 employees per unit (Table 3).
From an environmental perspective, the overall trend can still be considered neutral, as the slight decrease in the number of enterprises and the expansion of some more energy-efficient sectors have not yet resulted in a measurable reduction in overall environmental pressures.
Data
Figure 1: Number of industrial enterprises by region (years 2012-2022)
ISPRA elaboration based on ISTAT data.
Table 1: Industrial enterprises (narrow industry) by economic activity section, region, and regional aggregate (2021)
| ISPRA elaboration based on ISTAT data. |
Table 2: Employment in industrial enterprises (narrow industry) by economic activity section, region, and regional aggregate (2021)
| ISPRA elaboration based on ISTAT data. |
Table 3: Local units and employees by economic activity section, narrow industry (ATECO 2007 2 digits) (2012-2021)
| ISPRA elaboration based on ISTAT data |
Table 4: Local units and employees in active enterprises by regional aggregate (2020-2021 changes)
| ISPRA elaboration from ISTAT data |
The 2022 picture confirms the predominance of manufacturing (Table 5), which employs around 92% of the industrial workforce (Table 5). The sectors with the highest number of local units remain metal products manufacturing (77,017 enterprises), food production (54,973), and machinery and equipment repair and installation (38,492) (Table 3).
Although the sections related to energy supply and waste management together account for just over 7% of enterprises, they have shown the highest structural growth rates over the last decade.
The territorial distribution (Table 2) continues to see Lombardy in the lead—with over 72,000 enterprises and nearly one million employees—followed by Veneto and Tuscany. However, in 2022, the South recorded the highest relative increase in the number of enterprises (+2.6% year-on-year), suggesting a possible geographic rebalancing.
The average enterprise size (Table 3), calculated as the employee-to-local unit ratio, continues to grow and reached 9.3 employees in 2022, confirming ongoing consolidation and aggregation processes, also supported by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).