Like a long-distance runner who starts sticking his tongue out for the miles he has accumulated on his legs, the Spanish labor market no longer hides obvious signs of fatigue. The July data confirm the initial trend suggested by the June data: job creation slows down. Sooner or later this would happen, because Spain has accumulated for almost three years in a row, with unprecedented labor market expansion. So much so that, given the inertia, the data for July allows us to set a new record with the total number of active employees. 20.86 million participants.
Unemployment fell by a new 50,268 people, making a total of 2.68 million unemployed across Spain. It’s the lowest figure in the last 15 years, but still one of the highest in the entire European Union, according to data released this Tuesday by the Ministries of Labor and Social Security.
Each step in the race is more costly than the last, and the runner has had to fight against the wind, the tides, the firsts in recent years. war in europe twenty years and the largest inflation quarter. It has endured with astonishing endurance so far. Not few voices predicted massive restructuring in the summer of 2022 and mid-2023, when Spain managed to set a new record for employed people. But speed is no longer what it used to be.
Catalonia It was the autonomous community that provided the most employment to the global Spanish economy in June, creating three times more jobs than any other engine in the country. Madrid. In the early bars of the pandemic, the labor market in the capital was relatively a hit, but that’s not the case this year. In the first period of 2023, Catalonia generated 153,980 Social Security participants for 48,627 people from the Community of Madrid.
Schools take vacations and screw up statistics
The Spanish labor market added a total of 54,541 new jobs in July, the weakest figure since 2015. To put it in perspective, twice as many jobs were created in July 2022 and four times more in 2021. The seasonally adjusted job creation figure, i.e. subtracting the cyclical component, which still holds a strong weight in the Spanish economy, is more crude. Accordingly, 20,119 jobs were lost in July. It is the first red number in 12 months.
Going back to the raw data, trade And hostel They were the sectors that added the most new paid employees according to the time of the year. In the statistics, as in every year, a decrease of 51 thousand participations was recorded in education. And the thing is, schools Most substitute teachers or other teaching staff are fired in July and then rehired in September, thus saving them from paying salaries. holiday.