The public sector is growing four times faster than the private sector, creating one in three new jobs after the pandemic
Against all odds, the Spanish labor market shows unimaginable resilience in these times of war and economic uncertainty. The coronavirus crisis has already become an old nightmare and neither the escalation of inflation, nor the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nor the supply problem are currently taking their toll on employment, which is recovering by more than 5%, oblivious to any form of external event and, surprisingly, well above the boom in economic activity. Something unusual.
The comeback is historic. In just over two years, Spain has managed not only to restore pre-pandemic levels of affiliation, but to create nearly the same jobs that would have been generated had Covid-19 not broken out. And that suddenly, in just three months, nearly 800,000 jobs were destroyed. There was no precedent.
But in the past two years, Social Security has managed to recover those 800,000 lost affiliates and even add so many others, even though the number of hours worked is still lower. In particular, since February 2020, 768,852 new employees have been added and Spain can finally say that it has crossed the historic threshold of 20 million workers. A bar that, predictably, will be exceeded by 20.5 million this summer.
How was this dizzying ascent possible? Several can be the keys. The first is that it was a crisis very different from the others, as, as Florentino Felgueroso, an associate researcher at Fedea, points out, “we knew it would end soon and it didn’t have to hurt the future of many companies that And that’s why measures were taken that were very different from others, such as the ERTE, which “has delivered a frankly important result and saved millions of jobs in thousands of companies,” emphasizes Mari Cruz Vicente, secretary of Acción Sindical de CCOO.
The fact that this recession came at a good time for the economy, which was in full recovery, also had an impact. The companies were better prepared than on other occasions – as they hoarded profits and wrote off debt – and they have endured.
However, the great champion of this recovery has a public name: the administration. To the point that it is the generator of one in three jobs created since February 2020: more than 260,000, who have taken their jobs to historic levels, above the 2.82 million member companies.
The pandemic forced public administrations to strengthen themselves in many areas, but especially in health and social services and education, two of the sectors that have experienced strong growth in the past two years, exceeding 10%, which is the overall rhythm doubles. For Javier Blasco, director of the Adecco Group Institute, “it is not good news” that the state is the main driver of employment, as “the economy needs a productive fabric and prosperity”, something he emphasizes cannot be done. do with public employment.
It is true that the private sector, while at a cost, has already recovered in this first quarter of the year, surpassing pre-pandemic employment levels. But there is data taken from the Active Population Survey (EPA) that is very revealing: government employment has grown four times faster than private employment since the crisis. Of course he’s done with temporary positions. So while the labor reform percentage of temporary employment has approached the minimum of the last 15 years and has fallen to 22.1%, the public sector percentage paradoxically reaches the maximum and rises to 32.5%, more than ten points up there.
Another key player in this rapid recovery of the labor market is self-employment. If the State has created 33% of the nearly 770,000 new jobs, another 10% will be attributed to the self-employed, a group that has grown by more than 75,000 in the past two years -despite a certain slowdown – and that first time in history more than 3.33 million branches. However, the vast majority do not do so of their own accord, but are forced to reinvent themselves due to lack of work, according to a recent survey by OBS Business School.
To this day, Spain still has more than three million registered unemployed. In this crisis and thanks to the ERTE, unemployment did not soar as in the previous recession, but in February 2021 it exceeded four million unemployed, so it has been reduced by one million since then.
Where it can be said that there is full employment, and indeed the most vacancies in the Spanish labor market, is the telecommunications sector, which has grown by more than 18% during the pandemic and has become the sector with the biggest shock. The industry, in disturbing contrast, has not yet finished establishing itself as the engine of the Spanish economy and has barely managed to recover pre-covid levels. Spain today remains hostage to tourism, which contributes most of its GDP. “We are not doing well, we are not doing our homework to emerge stronger from the crisis,” says Blasco, warning that “impressive reforms, not aesthetic reforms” are needed to “break with many clichés” and make Spain a competitive country.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
