The 1996 census found that three quarters of manufacturing employment was in firms with fewer than 250 employees: some 550,000 firms, or 99.7 per cent of all manufacturing companies in Italy.
A significant part of this vast network of small and medium-sized enterprises is located in industrial districts, which taken together account for 41 per cent of industrial employment and 45 per cent of employment in manufacturing. For the most part, district firms are export-oriented.