Abstract

This paper is aimed at examining the peculiar features of the Italian labour market in the performing arts and show business, according to data collected on annual basis by ENPALS/Ente Nazionale Assistenza Lavoratori dello Spettacolo, our ad hoc social security organisation. Data regarding those inscribed to ENPALS show significant differences in their number, average work-days and daily payments - both in the year of reference, and throughout the years - according to the respective domains in which they belong (music, theatre, cinema, radio-television, various entertainments). A particular attention is paid to the two main categories - «artists and technicians» and «salaried and managerial workers» - in which the pro- fessional groups were classified (and related data collected and displayed) until 2006. Their different insurance status and labour conditions were revealing a lot about the Italian labour market in this field and even about the more or less industrial structure of the different activities. A wish is expressed so that this kind of classification and elaboration of data will be reactivated by INPS: the Italian social security general organisation in which ENPALS, for cost saving sake, has been integrated early this year.