As July approached, the landscape for summer hires in bars, hotels, restaurants, and adventure outfits shifted. Media chatter had cheered about job creation, and forecasts pictured money swirling between pockets and cash registers. Yet the mood swung. The latest unemployment figures moved people from cautious optimism toward recession fears. In the most recent month, the labor market showed a wobble. The Asturian economy resisted the downturn but deteriorated year over year, signaling bad news for work prospects. For the first time in the entire historical series that began in 2001, employment fell at the start of the sun-and-beach season in Spain. What might look like an anomaly has a straightforward explanation: hiring is moving forward, temporary education layoffs were avoided, and concerns about rising CPI data are woven into the economic fabric. To many observers, the signs smell like a recession in the making.
Spain posted one of its strongest June statistics, celebrated by the Ministries of Labor and Social Security, but July preserved the disappointing trend. The cooling of the labor market accelerated in recent weeks, and the early effects of stronger actions against inflation were visible. Spain reported a loss of 7,365 Social Security affiliates in July, a relatively modest decline except for the fact that the number of people who were previously employed did not fall. The figure edges close to a recent historical peak, yet remains above 20.3 million active workers. This marks the first clear sign of a cycle shift and hints at job destruction in the autumn.
In July, a total of 115,528 teachers, dining room supervisors, custodians, and other staff established training centers on the streets, intensifying the visible job displacement. Agriculture and construction also shed workers, albeit to a lesser extent, with the government attributing part of the loss to unusually high temperatures in recent weeks.
When July typically brings higher employment and lower unemployment, this year’s month did not follow that pattern. Unemployment rose slightly by 3,230 people, marking the first July increase since 2008. The rise kept the unemployment tally under three million, closing the month with 2.8 million people seeking but unable to find work. It remains the highest rate in the European Union, even as it has fallen by nearly a million people over the past two years. The uptick did not hit men and women equally, showing a small 0.1 percent decrease among men and a 0.3 percent increase among women.
The trend shows more unemployment among wage earners and less among the self-employed. Social Security recorded a loss of 10,422 self-employed workers, the largest drop since 2009 and the first in five months. Self-employed workers had shown notable resilience since the Covid period, supported by government assistance, which for the first time became available broadly within this group. The month ended with about 3.3 million self-employed individuals, a figure likely to shift as new contribution rules begin to apply in 2023.
July’s data did not translate into an increase in workers affected by ERTEs, despite the CPI concerns. The ERTE group, which has hovered as a share of the labor market for months, numbered 21,135 employees partly or fully in ERTE in July, roughly 500 fewer than the prior month.