The number of Italians in work rose to pre-recession levels in July, according to figures from national number-crunching agency Istat. For the first time since before the start of the country's long recession, the number of people in work has topped 23 million.

In total, 23.06 million people were registered as working in July, a figure which has not been so high since October 2008, when it reached 23.08 million. According to Istat, that figure rose by 59,000 or 0.3 percent from June, and represented a 1.3 percent rise since July 2016. Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter that the figures showed a positive recovery, but added that there was "still a lot to be done" in order to tackle the country's unemployment crisis.