Apulia (south Italy): From a land of emigration to a land of immigration

For more than a century Italian emigration contributed to rebalancing the labour market in Italy, through the absorption of significant numbers of the Italian workforce abroad and by alleviating unemployment levels, and also represented a source of national economic wealth. In the last two decades the Italian migratory trend has been reversed: there has, in fact, been an intensification of migratory flows towards Italy owing to the return of our compatriots, whose economic goals have been realised, and to the arrival of citizens either from poorer countries whose growth rate is zero or negative, or from developing countries. It is certainly necessary to bear in mind that the foreigners are not all workers: there are spouses, children, family members and other persons present for reasons other than work or family, and there are the children of immigrants born in Italy. The data regarding the wealth produced by the work of the immigrants could be significant, also and above all, in view of demographic shrinkage and the ageing of the Italian population forecast for the next fifty years. In view of this, immigration could become a real source of wealth both in economic terms and in terms of human capital. If we evaluate separately and comparatively the immigrations that take place for the demand for manpower and those due to flight from situations of economic and political hardship, we can see that Apulia, starting from 1990s, has become not only a land of passage towards the rest of Europe, but also an objective for settlement.