April Brings Sharpest Ever Drop in Spanish Unemployment

April Brings Sharpest Ever Drop in Spanish Unemployment

Unemployment continues to fall as the summer months approach

The Spanish Labour Ministry announced on Thursday at the amount of unemployed people in Spain dropped 3.9% in April, the sharpest dropin unemployment ever recorded in the country.

The official data released by the government shows around 129,281 people were employed in Spain in April, chipping away at the amount of unemployed people and     leaving just 3.57 million Spanish people out of work.

3.57 million people might be a little high for a country the size of Spain, there has been an encouraging trend towards job creation over the past 15 months; which is a great sign that the Spanish economy is thriving.

The king of job creation in April was the tourism sector, in particular restaurants and hotels. There was no stopping jobs being created in the run-up to the Easter holidays. Around 130,000 jobs were created in all, around 96,672 of them in services.

Other industries performing well in April were construction, real estate, and agriculture as Spain sets up for the Summer season by giving these economic sectors a boost.

A survey released this week by the Institute for National Statistics (INE) showed the rate of expansion for the Spanish service sector. The sector was adding jobs at the fastest rate in over two years, becoming the driving force behind the record increase in employment figures.

The Labour Ministry confirmed the number of people registered as paying social security rose 1.18% in April, equalling a growth of around 212,216 extra people.

Data Forecasts Spanish Unemployment Drops Below 17% for First Time in Years

Data Forecasts Spanish Unemployment Drops Below 17% for First Time in Years

Its official when the economy is moving in the right

direction unemployment drops drastically

Spain saw unemployment soar to the record rate of 27% in 2013, but is now looking at ending 2017 with less than 17% unemployment for the first time in years.

While there is still the myth that the Spanish economy is still stagnant, official figures from government and European bodies show that Spain has been one of the strongest economic performers in the continent for the past 18 months now.

While 17% unemployment could still be considered pretty high, in relative terms it means Spain is on course for another year of strong economic growth. The rate of unemployment fell to 18.6% in 2016, and it’s predicted that it could fall another 2% during 2017; which would mean over half a million more people in work.

This was the message spread by the Spanish Economic Minister Luis de Guindos last week. The Economic Minister admitted that the unemployment rate in the country was still inadequate, but was still very bullish overall on the long-term prospects.

Economic growth topped 3.2% GDP in 2016, with similar levels of growth expected for this year, and a further +2.5% growth expected for the next four years. The queues in the job centre are getting shorter, and thousands of educated Spanish youth are returning from Germany, the UK, and wherever else they have been, creating what economists feel is more of an opportunity than a burden.

Youth unemployment in Spain is still one of the highest in Europe, reaching over 25%, but there has been plenty of recovery in other industries; evident by the rising number of Spaniards being issued with mortgages. This has left the Spanish youth more confident about their chances of securing a bright future in their home country.

Spanish Unemployment Down to Below 20% for First Time in Six Years

Spanish Unemployment Down to Below 20% for First Time in Six Years

Encouraging news for spain as unemployment carries on falling

There are plenty of signs that the Spanish economy is getting back on track and one of the latest concerns the state of the Spanish job market.

For the longest time now Spain has seen unemployment levels that are much higher than the Eurozone average. Now the most recent data says that Spanish unemployment is at 18.9% and it’s a pretty significant number. This rate might still be higher than France, Germany and Belgium but how much unemployment has fallen by is encouraging for Spaniards.

Even two years ago the Spanish unemployment rate was around 30%, which half of youths unemployed. Now Spain can say that they have finally put an end to the times when unemployment in Spain reached 1-in-5.

The data comes from the National Statistics Institute and it shows that there are around eighteen and a half million Spaniards in employment. As you might expect the tourism, construction and manufacturing industries all reported strong growth during the summer. Over 220,000 jobs were created in the tourism sector along in the past three months. While it’s true that some of these jobs were only temporary seasonal work, there were still more long-term jobs offered than in the past few years.

When the end of the third quarter came the INE calculated that only 4.32 million Spaniards are currently unemployed, and only 27,300 people found themselves laid off over the quarter. During this same period some 217,700 new positions were opened up in the private sector. Even the public sector added 10,000 new jobs despite being left rudderless for the past ten months due to a lack of government.

Spain is pretty much back to normal now following the drop in unemployment to below 20%. Because Spain is such a regional country that changes with the seasons unemployment levels have always hovered around 20%. The unemployment rate only dropped below 15% during the economic booms before and after the turn of the millennium.

From all perspectives it looks like 2017 will see even more people in work in Spain as it’s expected the economy will grow by over 3% next year. All of the signs are very encouraging and if it all goes well it should also lead to more confidence from consumers and investors in other leading Spanish industries such as the real estate sector.

Spanish Unemployment Drops at Highest Rate in 20 Years

Spanish Unemployment Drops at Highest Rate in 20 Years

Even though two-thirds of the jobs that were created in June were temporary positions, more and more open-ended jobs are being created.

Spanish unemployment is slowly turning a corner

Spain always sees a boom in jobs during the summer and this boom was bigger than ever with data showing the country welcomed 84,000 new employees to social security in June; representing the biggest single fall in unemployment the country has seen since 1997.

The Employment Ministry confirmed that 83,993 people registered with the state employment offices at the beginning of July. The current official unemployment figures now stand at 3.68 million in Spain.

Going on a month-by-month basis July saw 84,721 more people added to the payroll than in June. When you compare it to figures from last year there are 3% more people working this July than last July. Spain currently has 17.8 million people contributing to social security.

Many of these new jobs (around 51,000) were created in the hotel and catering sectors. This is confirmation of the trend that the reason Spain’s economy does so well during summer is because of the long summer tourism season. While many of these jobs are often temporary current trends suggest that many of these “summer jobs” could last longer and some may even become permanent positions.

Spanish daily El País are reporting that 7.6% of the new contracts signed in July, which is about 1.81 million, were open-ended. This means that the positions the contracts are for could last longer than the summer season. This might sound like a small figure but it is representative of a growing confidence in the hospitality sector; a confidence reinforced by the record number of tourists, higher spending per head, and the recovering economies of both Spain and Europe as a whole.

Marcel Jensen, an economy professor with the Autónoma University of Madrid said that the figures show how strongly the Spanish economy is doing right now and the cost of living in Spain is being kept low. More people are being employed each quarter. Marcel did warn that reforms would be needed to maintain this success in the long term though.

Such reforms, which have been introduced in the past few years to liberalise the employment sector of Spain, appear to have done a good job of boosting employment. Even so analysts and financial experts believe that the growth Spain has seen for the past two years will slow down within the next two years.

Spanish Unemployment Falls at Fastest Rate in Ten Years

Spanish Unemployment Falls at Fastest Rate in Ten Years

The summer is helping to push unemployment down

Summer always brings with it a boost to Spanish employment. Millions of people flock to the country over the summer and that means more work needs to be done and more people are needed to do it.

This year the annual boost in employment has been the biggest the country has seen for a long time. Data from the Labour Ministry of Spain shows that unemployed dropped at the highest rate in ten years over June. This suggests that the economic recovery Spain has seen is staying strong.

Spain still has a bit of reputation for being a place without jobs for some of Europe. While there is still too much youth unemployment in general unemployment has continued to drop for the past few years.

The June figures show that jobless claims went down 124,349 that much. So now the total of unemployed people in Spain is roughly 3.76 million. Spain also saw almost 100,000 new social security registrations in June so now there are around 17,760,271 people employed in Spain; the highest for over seven years.

Most of these jobs were created by the bumper summer season. While some of these jobs are seasonal there are plenty of non-tourism related jobs. The El Pais newspaper shows nearly 40,000 people were hired in the hospitality trade in June, which may be classed as seasonal jobs. The retail sector saw nearly 28,000 new hires, with nearly 19,000 in administrative activities, 14,000 hired in manufacturing, and roughly 11,500 people hired in the construction sector.

No matter how you look at it Spanish industries are creating thousands of jobs a month which is great news for the economy and keeps the cost of living down in spain.