It’s okay to be population has grown more or its volume retirees should be higher than other fields. If Alicante has sunk in the national wealth rankings over the past two decades and last place in the country in per capita income This is just because productivity economy too One of the lowest in Spain. In other words, the type of products that come out of their factories or the services their companies provide—including tourism—are less profitable than other parts of the country.
Therefore, it can at least be deduced from the comparison made by the Institute for Economic Research of the Province of Alicante (Ineca), which exceeds the GDP volume of each Spanish border by the number of employees of their companies. Productivity per employee, with a clearly negative outcome for the province, as agreed by the director of Ineca Studies Francisco Llopis. First of all, compared to the situation 20 years ago.
Broadly speaking, the reality is that productivity per employee increased significantly during this period, because if in 2000 Alicante companies generated equivalent wealth 36,786 € per employee, last year with provincial GDP data in 2019, this figure It had risen to 54,157 euros, which is 47% more.
The problem is the remaining provinces much improved plus. Therefore, if at the beginning of this period the difference with the average productivity per worker for the country as a whole was only € 1,982, ie 5.11% at the latest data this difference increased to 6,926 euros11.3%.
Likewise, Alicante in 2000 position number 22 currently in wealth per employee It dropped to 44th place. In other words, only Melilla, Granada, Almería, Jaén, Murcia, Málaga, Badajoz and Córdoba do worse on this indicator.
As Llopis points out, the explanation is a factor set. To get started, in industry-recorded weight loss in the entire productive fabric of the province, not only according to other branches of activity such as hotel management, but also industry type and in innovation and use of new technologies. Therefore, although the bulk of Alicante’s factories are dedicated to consumer products, requires a lot of effortLike shoes, in the provinces that occupied the top of the table—Tarragona, the three Basques, or Navarra—there was a significant transformation from heavy industry to another during these decades. heavy use of technology.
And something similar can be said about tourism. While on the Costa Blanca, middle class visitorsfrequented by visitors with higher purchasing power, these areas also offer a higher level of efficiency. Balearic IslandsEighth with the highest GDP per employee with 64,136 Euros, Almost 10,000 euros more than Alicante.
Another determining factor is business size, in which state it is still very small. So, for example, in Alicante up to 20.3% of workers are self-employed compared to 17.3% of the national group. This translates into a lower capacity to invest in innovation or seek new markets abroad.
To all of the above it should be added that: chronic deficit of public investment, This has meant that Alicante’s economy has received less support from the public sector over all this time compared to other parts of the country – since 2008 alone, Ineca calculates a loss of 3,500 million – and is also now a burden for their competitiveness due to the lack of infrastructure they have elsewhere.
“It’s not a question of criticizing existing sectors of the Alicante economy. On the contrary, we should be grateful that they are there, but also help them innovate more and attract companies from other sectors that also contribute to generating more wealth,” says Llopis.