16 - HANDICRAFTS

Contents

1. Enterprises and persons employed (ASIA)

2. Enterprises registered in the Business Registers

3. Craftsmen registered with INPS

4. Other statistics

This section contains information on handicraft businesses in Lombardy, taken from different sources: enterprises (and persons employed) included in Istat’s Statistical Register of Active Enterprises, enterprises registered with the Business Register of the Chambers of Commerce, craftsmen registered with INPS (National Institute of Social Security), cyclical trends and employment forecasts.

What are handicraft enterprises

In compliance with framework Law for handicrafts n. 443 of 8 August 1985 handicraft enterprises are directly run by the proprietor (a craftsman), their mission is to produce goods or supply services (excluding restaurants and bars) and they must not exceed the following size:

• Enterprise with a not fully-automated production process: maximum 9 employees including apprentices (not more than 5). The maximum number of employees can be extended to 12 provided that the new employees are apprentices.
• Enterprise operating in the sector of art products, traditional products and tailor-made wearing apparel: maximum 32 employees including apprentices (not more than 16).  . The maximum number of employees can be extended to 40 provided that the new employees are apprentices.
• Transport enterprise: maximum 8 employees.
• Construction enterprise: maximum 10 employees including apprentices (not more than 5). The maximum number of employees can be extended to 14 provided that the new employees are apprentices.

Within the above mentioned size limitations, handicraft enterprises can also be established with the juridical form of partnership, provided that the majority of the partners contribute to the production process with their own work (also manual).

Sectors of economic activities: the new classification

Since January 2008 Istat has adopted the new ATECO 2007 classification of economic activities. The migration of economic statistics to the new classification follows a specific calendar for all the EU Member States.

ATECO 2007 classification is the national version of the European nomenclature, Nace Rev. 2, published in the Official Journal of 20 December 2006 (Regulation (EC) no 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006).

More detailed information on ATECO 2007 is available in the explanatory note to Section 9 – Enterprises.

1. Enterprises and persons employed (ASIA)

Data on enterprises and employment are derived from Istat’s Statistical Register of Active Enterprises (ASIA). Active enterprises are defined as those enterprises that carried out an economic activity for at least six months during the reference year.

ASIA covers the economic units that operate in the industry sector, in trade and in services. It contains information in the identification of these units (name and address) and on their characteristics (economic activity, persons employed, juridical form, turnover).

More detailed information on the ASIA Register can be found in the explanatory note to Section 9 – Enterprises.

2. Enterprises registered in the Business Registers

The data relating to handicraft enterprises registered in the Business Register of the Chamber of Commerce, broken down by juridical form and economic activity are provided by InfoCamere, a company that belongs to the Chambers of Commerce and manages and disseminates all their data.

The data derived from the Business Register refer to the number of “operating” enterprises, i.e. enterprises that were active at the end of the period considered, and to the number of “registered” enterprises (which also include, the inactive ones, the suspended ones, and the bankrupt ones). In addition to these “stock” data, InfoCamere also releases “flow” data, i.e. new registrations of enterprises and cancellations of closed down ones.

More detailed information on the Business Register can be found in the explanatory note to Section 9 – Enterprises.

3. Craftsmen registered with INPS

While handcraft enterprises are registered in the Business Register, their proprietors, working partners and family workers are included in the social security registers (INPS)

The statistical data on craftsmen registered with INPS refer to the workers registered in the pension fund managed by INPS. More specifically, these are:

• proprietors of handicraft enterprises, i.e. persons who work in the enterprises on a regular basis and also run it;
• family workers, who work in the enterprise on a regular basis and as prevalent activity. Members of the family include: the spouse, relatives within the third degree (parents, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts), and relatives-in-law within the second degree ( fathers in law, brothers in-law, etc.).

The data provided by INPS are taken from the Administrative Register.

The survey unit is the person who results to be registered during the reference year (even if for a fraction of the year).

The classification variables are:

• reference year
• geographical area – region – province (where the enterprise is located)
• gender
• age group
• professional status (proprietor or family worker).
• year of first registration

The analysis variables are

• total number of persons registered or insured
• annual average number of persons registered.

The data are updated on a yearly basis.

4. Other statistics

This section contains data taken from the business survey conducted by Unioncamere Lombardia, data on employment forecasts, as well as some information on handicraft establishments and employment at the 2001 Census.

The business survey conducted by Unioncamere Lombardia

On a quarterly basis Unioncamere Lombardia conducts a survey on the manufacturing sector, covering two samples of enterprises: industry enterprises with more than 10 persons employed and handicraft enterprises with more than 10 persons employed.

The sample is stratified according to: the economic activity, the enterprise size, and the province. Some strata are oversampled, in order to ensure greater significance of data disaggregated by size, province or sector.

Every quarter around 1,700 valid interviews on industry enterprises, and around 1,400 on handicraft enterprises are collected. The survey method is CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing), which enables to collect in a short time span, more than 20 quantitative variables and around 10 qualitative variables.

The data collected are weighted according to the employment structure, which is updated frequently.

The survey results can be disaggregated by:

• enterprise size, 3 classes (from 10 to 49 persons employed, from 50 to 199, 200 and more);
•  economic activity, 13 sectors (Metalworking, Non-metal minerals, Chemicals, Engineering, Means of transport, Food, Textiles, Leather and footwear, Wearing apparel, Wood and furniture, Paper and publishing, Rubber and plastics, Miscellaneous);
• economic destination of the goods produced, 3 classes (final consumption goods, intermediate consumption goods, investment goods);
• territory, 11 provinces of Lombardy.

The time series of the data collected enable to produce index numbers on a fixed basis, which are easy to understand.

Time series are seasonally-adjusted with the TRAMO-SEATS procedure. This is a mode-based method where the components are extracted using an optimum filter derived from the ARIMA model. At present, TRAMO-SEATS is the procedure used by the main national and international Institutions (Eurostat, Istat, Isae). The procedure has been implemented using the software DEMETRA, developed by Eurostat.

The interventions implemented to the time series are: automatic correction of outliers (Additive Outliers; Level shift and Transitory Change); correction of Easter effect, correction of calendar effects due to working days and leap years, correction of effects due to Italian national holidays.

Every quarter the TRAMO-SEATS procedure covers the entire time series and not only the last data collected, which constantly increases the precision of the estimates relating to the past. For this reason, due to the new information acquired,  the release of new quarterly data may generate minor corrections to the data released in previous quarters.

In order to quantify the results of the qualitative variables surveyed (entrepreneurs’ expectations, level of stocks, production capacity used) the “balance” technique is used. This method is widely used and is considered the most efficient one.

More detailed information can be found in the explanatory note to Section 10-  Energy, industry, construction and public works.

Employment forecasts of the handicraft sector

Data on employment forecasts are taken from the “Excelsior Information System”, promoted and conducted by Unioncamere, in agreement with the Ministry of Labour and the EU. Since 1997 the Excelsior survey is one of the most important Italian sources of statistical information on the labour market. It is included in the Italian Statistical Programme; response o the survey by enterprises is mandatory.

The Excelsior survey covers a sample of around 100,000 enterprises (handicraft and non-handicraft) and is conducted on a yearly basis. The data available comprise the main information on the labour demand expressed by Italian enterprises and on the characteristics of the job profiles needed (age, educational level, experience, recruitment difficulties, etc.).

More detailed information on the Excelsior survey can be found in the explanatory note to Section 6 – Labour force

The Census data

The data presented in this yearbook are those of the 8th Census of Industry and Services, which refer to 22 October 2001.

In order to provide more complete information, when possible the data are compared to those of the previous Census (1991).

More detailed information on the Census data can be found in the explanatory note to Section 9 – Enterprises.