The labor market slows and Social Security loses the barrier of 2.1 million members, while temporary employment is cut in half in the first year of the labor reform
Another setback for the Spanish labor market, which is now starting the year with a clear delay. The enthusiasm that sustained employment over the past year and a half came to an end, and the poor forecasts left by December are accentuated in early 2023: in January, more than 215,047 affiliates were lost and 70,000 unemployed were added, according to data published this Thursday by the Ministries of Labor and Social Security.
It is true that January is a month that usually brings bad news for the labor market due to the end of the Christmas period and it is also true that the previous two January months were worse, but with these two exceptions we have to go back to 2013, in full Great Recession , to overcome this bad data.
In addition, the slowdown in the Spanish labor market, which until now had courageously resisted the war in Ukraine and price increases, is evidenced by the fact that the pace of job creation has practically halved over the past year. So if membership grew by 4.2% in January 2022, it is now down to 2.3%, the worst level since March 2021 and well below the rates recorded during the period of economic recovery from 2015 to 2019.
Social Security drops below the 2.1 million mark again nine months after overcoming it after the pandemic and stands at 20,081,224. However, in seasonally adjusted terms, it’s almost 2.3 million donors after an increase of 57,726 in January, according to the ministry led by José Luis Escrivá, marking the sixth consecutive month of increased employment.
On the other hand, the increase of more than 70,000 unemployed is lower than the average increase of 81,424 or more than 100,000 in the years leading up to the pandemic, the Labor Department said. In any case, the total number of unemployed now exceeds 2.9 million.
But there are also reasons for optimism. Temporary employment, one of the major ballasts that dragged the Spanish labor market along for decades, has been reduced by half a year and a month after the entry into force of the labor reform. If before the new standard it exceeded 30% on average, in January it fell to 15%, which is already close to the European level. And the percentage of accidents under the age of 30 has even been reduced by more than half, from 53% to 23%, 30 points less.
For example, there are now 2.3 million more members on permanent contracts than in December 2021, the last month before the reform took effect.
The trend towards stabilization of employment is also visible in the total number of contracts registered during the month of January: one million fewer contracts signed and 44% of the more than 1,200,749 contracts signed were permanent.
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.
