Rome, Jun 14 (IANS): Italy's labour input outpaced economic growth in the first quarter (Q1) of this year, the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) revealed.

ISTAT said in a statement that labour input increased by 1.5 per cent compared to the previous quarter and 6.7 per cent year-on-year, reports Xinhua news agency.

Both figures outpaced the growth of Italy's economy, which expanded by 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter and 6.2 per cent year-on-year.

Labour input also outpaced the growth in the overall employment rate.

Italy had 120,000 more jobs at the end of the first quarter of the year than it did in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 0.5 per cent, said ISTAT.

Over the year ending on March 31, the Italian economy created 905,000 new jobs, an increase of 4.1 per cent compared to the year-ago period.

Labour input is a measure of the number of hours worked in a country.

It is an important measure of a country's employment situation because, unlike traditional measures of employment, part-time and full-time workers are weighted differently in the calculations.