The army of 18,000 artisans, the last great 'factory': "The province that works"

Ferrara, July 8, 2025 – In our province, over 18,000 artisans work and create every day with their hands and ideas, 18,719 to be precise. They are not few. Of these, 9,077 are employees, the rest – quite a few – are owners of a company that they, their parents, or their grandparents, perhaps created and set up. Three generations of pride. Artisan businesses, in fact, in our province, there are 8,208.

There is yet another figure that should make us reflect , which tells us how strong this sector is, sometimes considered not crucial. Those 18,719 workers in the artisan sector are certainly not a small slice of the entire employment. Just to make a reference, to launch a provocation. At Berco - it is true that the Copparo company has been decimated by successive and increasingly frequent crises - a thousand workers work. Until a few months ago there were 1200 , with voluntary exits they have gradually decreased. Berco is still one of the companies that in terms of number of employees is among the largest in the province. The petrochemical giant? The employees are 2200. The former giant, Vm of Cento? By now there are 250 left in those departments, a collapse in the ranking of metalworking companies. Which sees Berco in first place, second Lte with 550 employees. And third Vm. The numbers on the world of craftsmanship were released in recent days by the Cgia Research Office which made a national picture to highlight how strong and vital this sector is. With businesses often born from nothing, in a garage or little more. And there are many stories that follow this pattern, a pattern of pride, sacrifice and work. Faces and stories that have been rewarded in recent months, with the awarding of laurels and plaques to master craftsmen in the Chamber of Commerce. Cgia also launches a provocation with this research, a provocation aimed at highlighting how craftsmanship - which represents one of the pillars of our economic system - has an employment dimension that is clearly higher than that attributable to the main manufacturing industry in Italy. We are talking about Stellantis . At a national level, there are 1.24 million artisan businesses, 2.8 million employees and in 2022 the sector generated an added value of 143 billion (compared to the 2.8 achieved by Stellantis).

“Despite this, the attention of the mainstream media, public opinion and a good part of politics – Cgia underlines – is almost always focused on analyzing the performance and results of our main automotive group and, more generally, of the few large companies left in the country. Let's be clear, this is partly justifiable conduct , of course. However, it should be replicated more frequently also with regard to small businesses and artisans who, we repeat, constitute one of the cornerstones of our production and employment system”. Then, to stay on topic, there is another sector. The car supply chain. Let's turn the spotlight on Ferrara and its province. The number of employees in artisan businesses in the car supply chain is 2,228. Of these, 1,148 operate in the car repair sector. Quite an army . Cgia broadens the scope, again a comparison. The artisan businesses in this sector in Italy are just over 72,600 and the employees 389 thousand. Nine times more than the employees of the Stellantis Group, which amounted to 43 thousand at the end of 2023. The artisans, the first power of the economy. Almost.

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