An 'army' of 509,000 people left Italy during the 2008-2016 period for work reasons, according to a report by Italy's labour consultants' statistical observatory released on Wednesday. The top destination is Germany, with 20,000 Italians moving there in 2015 alone, following by Britain with 19,000 and France with over 12,000.
There was also major internal migration during the economic crisis.
Unemployment in southern Italy led to "an increase of 273,000 residents in the north (of Italy) and 110,000 in the centre" in the 2008-2015 period for a total of 383,000 people who left southern regions, according to the report. Campania was the biggest loser of inhabitants, with a drop of 160,000, followed by Puglia and Sicily (down 73,000). The regions that saw the biggest numbers of new citizens were Lombardy (102,000), Emilia-Romagna (82,000), Lazio (51,000) and Tuscany (54,000).
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