Monthly employment data August they are usually bad. Traditionally, the end of the summer season has caused tourism-related activities, from beach bars to rural hotels or airport shops, to experience the end of the holiday and ‘when August is over’, the number of staff is reduced and they adapt to the last months of the year. year.
This 2023 was no exception, and the data released by the Government this Monday reflect more than 2020 losses. 180,000 active workers all over the country. But contrary to what seems intuitive, hostel He’s not behind that deficit in Social Security accounts.
Statistics for this month of August are bittersweet as the data is bad in absolute terms, but they are less bad than usual before the outbreak of Covid. It hasn’t been a dramatic month compared to other years and the trend confirms the slowdown but doesn’t make the situation worse.
However, these lights are not incompatible with various shades; some are located on a not so distant horizon and others are already known ratios. unemployment higher European Union, among others. Here are five keys to a month of august.
Employment: Back to school has a price
“The rise in unemployment shows that the seasonality in a country’s economic cycles cannot be changed by labor reform alone,” said Pimec’s general secretary. Joseph GinestaAccording to August data. And while the new regulations have a clear impact in some sectors, impermanence and ‘use-and-throw’ dynamics continue to be established in some of the labor market bastions, though not always in the minority or small.
The hospitality industry, an industry that is laying off massive workforce as August 31 approaches, has hardly contributed to the drop in membership in the past month. 1,333 participations were lost, especially in an industry that employs 1.6 million people and is internalized with its pros and cons. discontinuous constant.
Where does the bite come from? The answer lies in education: One in three job cuts is concentrated in this sector, particularly in cottages, education centers and other recreational centers where parents take their children when there is no school.
Employment will continue to rise, but less
In a month where the seasonal component has such a strong weight in the statistics, seasonally adjusted data They help to see the trend and ‘where we are going’. Here the Government runs the numbers over the ‘kitchen’ and tries to isolate this seasonal component to gauge whether inertia is positive or negative beyond the situation. And employment increased according to this method 17,745 people in August.
A positive number yes, but confirms the cooling dynamics that data from previous months allow us to take a look at. And after two and a half years of strong growth and a particularly explosive spring for job creation, the rate is now falling. To put it in perspective, the seasonally adjusted monthly increases are averaged over this 2023 year. 60,262 membersThis is 3.4 times higher than the figure recorded in August.
Time will tell how the labor market will evolve in the last quarter of the year, which has traditionally been the most challenging and companies are less likely to hire.
Unemployment: Rising again, albeit to a lesser extent
The August data label may be “but less”. Employment fell, yes, but less than in other August months. Unemployment also increased again, but less than in other years. Especially 24,826 peopleuntil it again (and only slightly) exceeds its symbolic height. 2.7 million of the unemployed. The government stressed that this was the smallest increase seen in August since 2016.
Unemployment will remain the eternal problem of the Spanish labor market for another month – as the meme says: ‘it doesn’t matter when you read this’. Spain continues to have the highest unemployment rate in the EU, although its coverage rate has improved in recent years. In other words, there are more unemployed people who are currently receiving social assistance and thus have a minimum income at the end of the month. Specifically, seven out of 10 registered unemployed receive some benefit or subsidy from Sepe.
Bad month for self-employed
2023 is not a good year for employment autonomous. After surviving the epidemic with extraordinary resilience and entering the current price crisis without major losses, the self-employed group is now navigating low-lying, near-stagnant waters. Since last December, the self-employed in Spain practically neither won nor lost, as almost the same number of leavers are registered. In August, a negative balance was recorded for the second month in a row, notably 10,945 self-employed people. 3.3 million members He was discharged to RETA.
The summer months are particularly striking in terms of registrations and cancellations, with the loss of self-employed workers in almost all activities. The common denominator of wage earners is that the biggest bleeding is concentrated in education. The group is adapting to the price crisis, as well as the new quota system that now taxes the self-employed based on their net income. It remains to be seen how the group reacts in the second half of the year and whether some workers who fail to meet the minimum quota will opt to unsubscribe if given badly.
Catalonia leads job loss and Madrid continues to unwind
The job loss was cross-sectional, both regionally and sectorally. The end of the tourist season has had a special impact on areas such as: CataloniaThis adds more presence of the tourist season to the pit in education. In absolute terms, the Catalan provinces lost jobs with 60,317 fewer jobs and a total of 3.6 million contributors.
The August bite acquired special significance in the Levante and France. Madridalthough this seasonal factor was not so present, 36,860 out of a total of 3.5 million employees remained contributors. The state capital continues its cycle of decline this 2023. So much so that it recorded a negative balance of 6,365 employed so far this year compared to the positive balance of 104,595 new employees in Catalonia.