No month of April had created as many jobs as this one. In fact, there has only been one month in history where more jobs have been added than in April 2023, but we have to go back to July 2005, in the middle of the real estate bubble and with the regularization of immigrants. Now, without a bubble, with a war in Ukraine and a price crisis, Social Security has managed to absorb 238,436 average contributors in original terms in just 30 days, a record that takes the system to a new maximum: there are already more than 20 6 million workers in Spain, a milestone in a labor market that maintains a dynamism that surprises itself and others. Unemployment has also fallen, but in this case to a much lesser extent and without any record: there are 73,890 fewer unemployed, almost a third of the jobs created and a smaller decline than in 2022 and the period of economic recovery before the pandemic (2014-2019). This gap between employment and unemployment may be due to two factors: first, many interrupted landlines that were idle but not counted as unemployed were activated this month; and in the same way because the active population is also increasing, that is, people of working age who are looking for work, although they do not have to be registered with the employment offices. Specifically, the number of average affiliates stands at 20,614,989, the highest number in the series. The number of working women is rising sharply, surpassing 9.7 million for the first time, but not for men, reaching 10,888,405, the highest figure in the last 15 years, but 300,000 less than in 2007, just before the Great Recession struck. In the past year, Social Security added 595,908 additional members, representing an annual growth rate of 2.98%. The labor market is therefore picking up and again hitting 3% thanks to an Easter with tourism that also breaks records. The hotel industry has been the big driver of the market this month of April, to the extent that it has created more than half of new employment by adding 120,000 employees, many of them permanent interrupted workers waiting to get to their hotel. were called. after. It is followed, though very distant, by trade, with 17,700 additional workers. It should also be noted that the rate of job creation is more than double the average in high-value-added sectors such as information technology and telecommunications, which are growing at 7.5% year-on-year; professional, scientific and technical activities, earning an advance of 6.3%; or the energy supply (6.7%). On the contrary, the only sector to gain momentum this month is education, with nearly 1,100 fewer teachers. Temporariness, at least April also breaks a new record in temporality. The rate is falling to the historic minimum of 14%, half of what was recorded before the labor reform just over a year ago. Temporary employment under the age of 30 was further reduced from 53% to 21%, 22 percentage points less. Taken together, there are now almost 2.9 million more members with an open-ended contract than in December 2021, the last month before the reform took effect. Another indicator of the increased stability is the increase in the average duration of the contracts that led to termination. Between January and April this year, it grew by 62 days compared to the figures for the same period in 2019, the last comparable year before the impact of the pandemic. Of the 4.1 million affiliates who had a temporary contract in the first quarter of 2022 and are still registered, 53% will be permanent in April 2023; i.e. 2.2 million. The majority, 1.8 million, are just permanent and 394,000 are discontinuous permanent. The industries where most temporary jobs have become permanent are trade and auto repair; inn; construction and manufacturing industry.
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.
