The Social Security affiliation and registered unemployment data that the Government publishes every month warned that the third quarter would not had been positive for employmentwith a lower boost in tourism and the usual collapse in education. However, the statistic most valued by labor market analysts, the INE Active Population Survey, indicates that July, August and September yield more positive results than expected.
138,300 jobs were created in the quarter, reaching a new record of 21.82 million employed people. It is less progress than last year, but in line with that of 2022, a very good year for employment. Furthermore, and this data is more surprising, the number of unemployed is not increasing: there are 2.75 million, almost the same as in the second quarter, when this variable had been rising in the last two years during this period. And with this the unemployment rate drops, which remains at 11.21%, the lowest since 2008.
Employment grows less (138,300) than in the third quarter of 2023, when 188,100 jobs were generated, but it is a similar advance to that of 2022, 138,200. In the last decade (without taking into account 2020 and 2021 due to how anomalous the data is due to the pandemic), employment grew on average by 171,900 people in July, August and September. In percentage terms, which refine even more, occupancy grew by 0.88% last year from the second to the third quarter, while this one grew by 0.64%. In summary: job creation is advancing at a good pace, but it is moderating compared to last year and also compared to the period prior to the health crisis.
A good indicator that job creation is no longer accelerating so much is the annual record. In year-on-year terms, 701,100 jobs were created from the third quarter of 2022 to 2023, while 373,500 jobs were created in the last year. That is, in the last year around half as many jobs have been created as in the previous 12 months. From 2021 to 2022, more were also created, 642,100, and in all the years since the recovery after the Great Recession began (with the exception of 2019).
Both last year and the year before, unemployment grew at this time of year, and that pattern has not been repeated in the third quarter. The proportion of unemployed stands at 11.21%, compared to 11.27% in the second quarter of the year. It is a slight drop, but it is notable because last year it grew 0.22 percentage points and the previous year, 0.04. It is the lowest unemployment rate since 2008. This returns to the pre-pandemic track, when it was common for unemployment to fall in July, August and September.
It is worth remembering that the unemployment rate in the European Union is 5.9%, well below the Spanish figure, which is also the highest on the entire continent. No matter how much the health of the Spanish labor market has improved in recent years, it continues to be the one with the highest proportion of unemployed workers.
The unemployment rate has a direct relationship with the number of unemployed, which falls slightly, by 1,000 people, from the second to the third quarter. It is a much better figure than that of 2023, when the number of unemployed grew by 86,000 people, and also that of 2022, when the increase was 31,000. Once again, a scenario is emerging that is reminiscent of the one before the pandemic, when the number of unemployed fell in this quarter. What’s more, the average for the last decade (again without 2020 and 2021) marks an average drop of 124,000 unemployed in this phase of the year.
(News in development. There will be expansion).
