In Italy it is one of the three metrics used. The others are the number of published papers and the h-index.

This is the table of thresholds for associate professorship ("II Fascia") and full professorship ("I Fascia"): http://abilitazione.miur.it/public/documenti/2018/Tabelle_Va... "Numero articoli" is "number of papers", "Numero citazioni" is "number of citations", and "Indice H" is "h-index". The thresholds are different for each research area (e.g., "INFORMATICA" is "computer science").

The topic is actually a little bit more complex, since looking at the metrics is only one step of the process.