“No way.” Jesús Cruz Villalón, a professor of Labor Law and Social Security at the University of Seville, answers when asked about vacancies and unfilled jobs in Spain. Álvaro Gaertner, a finance desk technician for CCOO and a lead contributor to the study “Analysis of Vacancies in Spain,” agrees. The data support the concern: the share of vacant positions, defined as vacancies relative to the number of employed people, stood at 0.9% at the start of 2022, well below the European average of 2.9% according to Eurostat data. Moreover, INE’s Quarterly Labor Cost Survey shows that 94.4% of firms report they have no roles to fill.
So how do one explain summers with heavy tourism demand and ongoing complaints about a shortage of skilled labor? How is it that multiple sectors criticize the labor market despite tourism often presenting abundant seasonal opportunities? The reality is that the vacancy rate has risen considerably over the past two years, and the impact is more pronounced in certain industries. Cruz notes that the total number of open positions grew from 100,041 in the first quarter of 2021 to 133,988 in the same period of 2022, a rise of more than 30% in just one year.
The public sector emerges as the largest source of vacancies, largely due to sluggish recruitment processes. Yet industries closely linked to tourism also feel the pinch, particularly in markets with scarce and expensive temporary housing, such as islands, where visibility of the problem is higher. The third and fourth most affected sectors are healthcare and higher-skilled technical occupations, which demand a workforce with specialized training that cannot be ramped up quickly enough to meet market needs.
“The pandemic accelerated this trajectory because ERTE kept workers idle, and as the market reopened, both job offers and vacancies surged,” explains the professor.
It may be surprising to note that Spain records the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. The Active Population Survey indicated a rate of 13.65% at the start of 2022. How can there be open positions amid such high unemployment?
The interviewed experts agree on a sector-by-sector pattern. The vacancy problem is not uniform; it reflects a mismatch between employers’ needs and the qualifications of job applicants, driven by a lag in labor market agility. Gaertner describes this as labor market friction. There is also concern that workers displaced from roles no longer demanded by the market lack adequate, continuous retraining opportunities.
Public Administration
“Public administration is the sector most affected by this phenomenon because hiring processes are slow,” says Cruz. INE data for the first quarter of 2022 show 38,685 vacancies in this sector, representing nearly 29% of all unfilled positions.
Trading sectors rank second. In this context, the main issue is linked to seasonal work, where wages tend to be low and housing costs are high. A clear example is clerical roles in tourist hubs like the Balearic Islands. “This is what’s happening in the hotel industry,” notes Gaertner of CCOO. He adds that working conditions are often poor and the housing market cannot be accommodated by seasonal wages.
More than a third of vacancies occur outside peak seasons, according to INE data from the start of the year, when 6,949 workers were needed. Emilio Gallego, Secretary General of Hospitality Employers of Spain, asserts that only about half of the 100,000 extra workers the sector requires each summer can be found. He also observes that while hospitality is not the most understaffed sector overall, it loses visibility and suffers more acutely during summer.
High-Skilled and Recycling Needs
Health services and research-focused scientific and technical professionals occupy the third and fourth positions in vacancies. Cruz notes a breakdown in professional recycling, with many unemployed workers no longer meeting the needs of technical roles in fields such as digital technology.
Low-skilled vacancies often reflect poor working conditions and, in some industries, high rental costs, which together hinder recruitment. When it comes to higher-quality positions, the lack of sufficient training—especially practical, ongoing training—appears as the main barrier, according to the experts. Companies have tended to recruit from outside rather than train their own staff, and there are not enough profiles of these high-demand workers to fill the gaps. Nevertheless, there is a sense of government action supporting constructive initiatives. Notably, the reform of vocational training announced at the end of March introduces a flexible, modular approach to continue education and professional development.
Appropriate and ongoing education, along with mobility, are cited by Antonio Di Paolo, an associate professor in the Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Applied Economics at the University of Barcelona, as essential for filling vacancies and addressing long-term unemployment that affects a substantial portion of job seekers. He argues for enabling workers to adapt to other sectors and locations, because many unemployed individuals resist changing their field or geographic area, and the public administration has not sufficiently encouraged this adaptability.