AT THE end of each summer Italian business leaders, politicians and journalists mingle with foreign guests at the Ambrosetti Forum in the Villa d’Este by the shores of the lovely Lake Como. This year, the breezes off the lake carried something not scented in almost a decade: a whiff of optimism about the Italian economy.

GDP in the second quarter was up by an annual 1.5%, and on September 5th the government’s statisticians said that leading indicators pointed to “a reinforcement of the prospects for growth”. The previous week, they had sounded a less positive note, reporting that the unemployment rate had risen from 11.2% in June to 11.3% in July. But even that held a kernel of promise. The unemployment rate measures the proportion of jobseekers out of work, and in July some 115,000 Italians became jobseekers. Not all found jobs, which is why the unemployment rate went up. But those who did pushed the total number in work to more than 23m for the first time since 2008. Italians, in other words, seem to be more hopeful that there are at last jobs to be had.

The entrepreneurial can look forward to easier credit too. A state bail-out in July of Italy’s oldest and shakiest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, coupled with the rescue of two lenders in the Veneto region, has left Italy’s troubled financial sector looking healthier. Its well-being should improve as banks start selling off a mountain of bad loans weighing on their balance sheets. Italy’s caretaker prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, was on hand at the forum to mop up congratulations. His government has also engineered a sharp fall in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya.

Problems nevertheless remain. Even if the new, rosier forecasts prove correct, the Italian economy will still be a drag on the euro zone. Latest figures show the single-currency area growing at an annual 2.2%. Still, the gap between Italy and the euro zone as a whole is narrowing.

A labour-reform package brought in by the previous government of Matteo Renzi relied heavily on providing employers with financial incentives to give workers steady jobs. Those incentives ran out last year. A sharp rise in the proportion of employees on fixed-term contracts points less to labour-market flexibility than to employers relying on easily disposable and under-trained employees. Juvenile unemployment remains a painful 35.5%.