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Employment Trends in Large Food and Beverage Companies in Italy 2019-2023

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/ecag2026oa20017
Submitted
aprile 29, 2025
Published
2026-10-01

Abstract

This study examines the labour adjustment dynamics of large Italian food and beverage processing (FBP) firms over 2019-2023, a window encompassing the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent supply-chain disruptions, and the inflationary shock of 2022-2023. Drawing on firm-level data from the AIDA (Bureau van Dijk) database, the analysis is based on a balanced panel of 98 firms that have continuously remained above the 250-employee threshold for 490 firm-year observations.
Three connected research questions are addressed: sectoral heterogeneity in employment growth (RQ1); the within-firm link between lagged profitability (EBITDA) and subsequent employment growth (RQ2); and the within-firm elasticity of unit labour cost (ULC) to firm size (RQ3). The empirical strategy combines fixed-effects panel regression with sector and time controls and is supported by a battery of robustness checks.
Aggregate employment grew moderately (+ 6.1%), with firmlevel adjustment concentrated in a narrow band; the predicted emergence of sectoral differentiation during the recovery phase is not statistically supported. The relationship between lagged profitability and subsequent employment growth is statistically and economically null, a result consistent with a labour adjustment framework in which adjustment costs, institutional rigidities, and labour hoarding decouple short-run hiring from short-run profit fluctuations. The within-firm elasticity of ULC to firm size is negative and statistically significant, with a composition probe indicating that the result is consistent with the presence of genuine scale economies as a contributing channel. The findings document firm-level adjustment dynamics within a specific and policy-relevant segment of Italian manufacturing during a period of compounded shocks.

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