How Italy became a submerging economy

 

iaz24

 Economic decline takes many shapes. In the northern Italian town of Ivrea, it looks like the abandoned, overgrown tennis courts where the employees of electronics giant Olivetti SpA once played.

In the 1980s, Ivrea was a European version of Silicon Valley. Of the 50,000 people employed by Olivetti, half worked in the town, enjoying generous salaries and plush corporate recreation facilities. Today Ivrea's biggest employers are the state health service and two call centres. Together they employ 3,100 people.

Olivetti still exists, but these days it is ................more