Unemployment will be reduced by an additional 268,000 people in the first year of the labor reform, leaving 2.3 million open-ended contracts
For the time being, the Spanish labor market has managed to overcome the economic consequences of the crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, closing the year 2022 with 471,360 more employees than twelve months earlier, in a period characterized by strong dynamics of employment. historically weaker for the economy since the summer, including the latter part of the year. In total, Social Security closes with nearly 20.3 million members, the highest figure in all history.
In December, employment grew by 12,640 people, although the figure is much lower than that of the same month last year, when more than 70,000 workers started an activity. The Department of Social Security explains that November was a month that “experienced a historic record”.
In this way, the membership number of August 2021 is exceeded by approximately 815,000 people, when the membership level was exceeded before the pandemic. The average membership in 2022 was 20.1 million people, 3.9% more than in 2021 (+750,000). This rate of increase is almost one percentage point higher than the average for 2017-2019, a period of high job creation.
In addition, this is the first year that the labor reform, agreed between the government, employers and unions, has started. For the Executive, “its positive effects on employment stability are evident in the strong momentum of indefinite hiring compared to pre-norm levels.” In concrete terms, there will be 2.3 million more members with an open-ended contract at the end of 2022 than at the end of 2021. And even more, according to the social security, young people have “particularly benefited” from this shift to forms of more stable contracts: three out of four under the 30 are now on permanent contracts (76%), compared to one in two before the reform (47% on average 2017-2021). In absolute figures, there were 2,013,724 young affiliates with a permanent contract in December, 807,836 more than a year earlier.
Less than 2.9 million unemployed
Recorded unemployment rates have also fallen over the course of 2022, ending the year with 2,837,653 unemployed, meaning 268,252 fewer people “in an international economic context still characterized by uncertainty,” according to the Ministry of Labor and Economy . Since February 2021, the worst time in employment after the corona crisis, unemployment has fallen by almost 1.2 million people.
In the specific case of the month of December, the number of unemployed people registered with the offices of the Public Public Employment Service (SEPE) decreased by 43,727. By economic sector compared to November, registered unemployment fell in the service sectors -37,080 (-1.81%), agriculture -4,922 (-4.16%) and in the group without previous employment by -7,155 (-2.82% ). There was hardly any variation in Industry, in particular 275 people (0.12%) and it increased in Construction, indicating 5,155 more people in a situation of unemployment (2.32%).
The total number of registered contracts during the month of December was 1,189,917. Of these, 464,152 are permanent employment contracts and represent 39% of all contracts. In absolute terms, there are 290,368 contracts of indefinite duration more than in the same month of 2021. A total of 18,310,343 contracts were signed in 2022, 4,201,878 contracts less (-18.7%) than in the same period of 2019, one of the expected effects, in terms of stability, after the implementation of the labor reform.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
