The impact has been mitigated by recourse to teleworking. Other sectors not directly affected by the containment measures were also inevitably hard hit, above all the transport sector. Italy’s GDP recorded a fall of around 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2020; the available indicators point to an even bigger decline in the second quarter.
As of mid-May, air traffic was down by over 80 per cent compared with last year, motorway traffic by almost 50 per cent, gas consumption for industrial use by almost 15 per cent and electricity consumption by 6 per cent. In the last few months, business confidence indicators and purchasing managers’ indices have tumbled.