Autumn is edging closer, hinting at the quiet phase the market now sits in. The current mood in the Spanish labor market is reflected by October’s data, which show a lift in total Social Security membership by 92,861 workers, bringing the number of active employees to 20.8 million people.
Unemployment rose in October by 36,936 people, reaching 2.75 million. This marks the lowest October unemployment level since 2007, underscoring a persistent but uneven pattern in the job market.
The scale of job creation remains notable by historical standards, yet when the trend line is examined, the pace appears modest. After an exceptionally strong spring, Spain’s labor market is finding it increasingly difficult to sustain new jobs month after month. When October’s results are contrasted with more typical Octobers from the past, they show softer momentum. If one looks back to 2015, when Spain began the long recovery from the major recession, the tenth month of the year has shown prudent but restrained employment gains, a pattern that has persisted into recent years.
The Ministry of Participation and Social Security relies on seasonally adjusted figures as a gauge of the economy’s pulse. These adjustments strip out calendar effects and other typical fluctuations tied to seasonal activity, such as weather-related shifts that affect hiring. The adjusted data for October indicate a marginal net increase of 5,077 new employees, equivalent to 0.02 percent. This rise is about 15 times smaller than in the spring once again and roughly one-quarter of the October 2023 increase. The earlier-summer slowdown appears to have extended into autumn, corroborating a softer hiring environment.
Education expands while accommodation and health sectors pull back
Labor reform, at least for now, has cushioned some of the calendar-driven volatility, tempering both surges in hiring during good months and the pullbacks during tougher periods. Nevertheless, hiring figures still show considerable volatility. For example, on the first day of October, nearly a million registrations and cancellations were recorded, spread fairly evenly across categories.
The sectoral mix behind this October’s employment figures helps explain the overall trend. Education, which had stepped back at the end of summer as many professionals moved to unemployment, hired back staff at the start of the academic year. The gain in education was particularly strong, contributing 191,154 members across the region. In contrast, the hospitality sector completed several reinforcements that had not been filled in the previous month, resulting in a negative balance of 50,316 people. The health sector—restructured after the Covid upheaval—lost 33,095 members in the period.
These sectoral shifts illuminate why October’s overall rise was driven largely by women, while men posted a smaller uptick of 0.9 percent compared with 0.1 percent for women. The labor-force participation gap shows 10.9 million workers overall, with 9.8 million women in the workforce, despite an ongoing trend where more women participated than men the previous year. Reaching the record of 10 million female jobs before year’s end remains a challenging objective, but it underlines the ongoing evolution of the labor market.
Madrid and Valencia lead regional improvements
Regionally, the strongest accelerations in employment occurred in the Community of Madrid, which added 42,657 positions, followed closely by Valencia with 35,516. After a sluggish start to the year for the capital city, Madrid’s job market has continued to expand into the closing months, posting gains for two consecutive months and signaling a resilient regional performance despite broader national volatility.