Although Italy household spending is increasing again, at current growth rates it will take until 2030 to return to consumption levels seen before the global economic crisis, a retail association said Monday.
Consumption nudged up 0.5 percent in April from March and by 0.8 percent from the same period last year, an improvement on the 0.4 percent annual increase registered in March, the Confcommercio association said.
Yet Italians won't recover pre-2007 levels of per-capita gross domestic product until 2027, Confcommercio said, warning that the years-long record could permanently increase absolute poverty levels.
"The length and harshness of the crisis could have irreversible or at least exceptionally long-term effects on the scale of absolute poverty," the group said during its annual assembly.
Italians' per capita GDP plunged 12.5 percent between 2007 and 2014, their disposable income levels by 14.1 percent and consumption by 11.3 percent, according to Confcommercio.
Italy's economy grew 0.3 percent in the first quarter of the year, marking an end to its longest recession on record, according to the central statistics office Istat.
