Confebask expects an ‘uncertain’ 2025 despite 1.8% GDP growth forecast

Confebask foresees a “complicated and uncertain” 2025 with Basque economy growth of around 1.8% – the same as in 2024 – although, given the “uncertainties and risks” existing, eventual growth next year could be between 1.3% and 2.5%, with an estimated 12,000 new jobs created.

These predictions were made in the context of the press conference offered this Friday by the President of Confebask, Tamara Yagüe, to announce this year’s economic and employment balance and the prospects for 2025.

Looking ahead to 2025, Confebask believes that the growth of the Basque economy will be comparable to that of 2024, below that of the Spanish economy and above that of the eurozone. Confebask estimates that it will grow by about 1.8%.

However, Tamara Yagüe has specified that, based on variables that are “very volatile these days”, they establish this growth within a wider range, ranging from 1.3% to 2.5%, as they believe that 2025 It will be a years of “great uncertainty and enormous risks.” The Basque Employers’ Organization estimates that Euskadi will end next year with 12,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 6.5%.

In your balance of 2024Confebask predicts that Euskadi will end with an economic growth of 1.8%, a figure slightly higher than estimated a year ago (1.6%). The Basque Employers’ Association’s employment forecast for 2024 is 11,000 more members than a year ago and an unemployment rate of 7%.

Yagüe also referred to the main point business concerns looks ahead to next year and has highlighted that the problems remain in finding qualified personnel, the growth of labor costs and absenteeism, which is reported by half of companies and is the worrying factor that is growing the most.