The difficulty of finding workers to join the company is a serious problem for craft businesses in Italy: nearly 60% of planned hires in the sector were difficult to find last year. This was said by Unioncamere President Andrea Prete. “The data,” Prete explained, "show that the mismatch problem for artisan firms is higher than the average one, which is also already very high, recorded for non-artisan firms under 50 employees (49.9%). This is also the reason why one in four artisan enterprises use non-EU workers". “Moreover, the artisan enterprise is an existing model of integration: in 2024 we count more than 220,000 enterprises in the sector led by foreigners, 17.8% of the total, up 25.2% from 10 years ago”. Artisans are also champions of Made in Italy, Prete stressed. "There are nearly 22,000 artisan export enterprises. Of these, 63.6% export products related to Italian excellence in the world - agribusiness, clothing, automotive, furniture - with a strong concentration in the fashion sector, where 18.4% of artisan exporting companies operate”.