2.94 billion: the Italian design economy grows

Fondazione Symbola, Deloitte Private and POLI.design, with the support of ADI, Circolo del Design, Comieco, AlmaLaurea and CUID presented today the results of the “Design Economy 2023” report. A snapshot on Italian design sector.
The sector has 36 thousand operators in the design sector, articulated among 20,320 freelancers and self-employed workers and 15,986 enterprises, which generated an added value of 2.94 billion in 2021 with 63 thousand employees. The companies are distributed throughout the country, with a particular concentration in the areas of specialization of Made in Italy and in the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia – Romagna and Veneto, where 60 percent of the companies are located. Among the provinces Milan (14.3 percent enterprises and 18.4 percent national value added) Rome (6.6 percent and 5.3 percent), Turin (5.1 percent and 13.3 percent) excel. Companies operate 32.8 percent abroad 24.2 percent non-EU, 44.8 percent domestically and 22.4 percent locally.

DESIGN AND ECOLOGICAL TRANSITION
The issue of sustainability emerges as relevant to the sector: as many as 87.4 percent of those surveyed emphasize its importance in current projects, a share that rises to 96.5 percent in the case of small to medium-sized companies. This centrality is matched by a widespread awareness in levels of competence, considered high or medium by 86.9 percent of respondents, with an accentuation for larger organizations (97.1 percent). In contrast, the presence of a minimum level of competency concerns only 2.8 percent of the total.