Business Start-ups and Active Employment Policies. The Case of Puglia

The great recession of the last seven years has hit very hard some segments of the working age population, in particular: young people, women and over-50- year-old workers who have lost their jobs. As a strategy to offer real opportunities for job, the measures of active labour policy in support of self-employment and business start-ups are particularly important. In fact, while the role of business start-ups shows uncertain empirical evidence on growth of productivity and technological innovation of the production system as a whole, more robust empirical evidence is in the creation of new employment. Especially in such a period of long economic crisis and slow growth without employment, these measures may represent an important response to increasing new net employment despite the difficulties highlighted by the big business. This paper analyzes the dynamics of business start-ups over the last 5-10 years at national and regional level, identifying the contribution in terms of net employment of newly born one in t having survived to t + 3. An in-depth analysis is carried out at Apulian regional level with a comparison with the national scenario relating to start-ups, survival of businesses 5 years after their establishment, impact in terms of net employment of surviving businesses to t + 3. The results show a reduction of start-up companies during the economic crisis, a significant impact in net job creation, a relationship between start-ups and development conditions.