The approach of summer boosts the labor market. If May is always a good month for employment in the Spanish economy, this year’s has been even better than usual. An increase of 232,000 affiliates, which is the second-best May in the historical series and leads to a new record in the total number of contributors, which have already exceeded 22.3 million. And a significant fact: practically half of the increase in contributors in May comes from foreign workers, with 111,000 new affiliates. Among Spaniards, the employment growth rate is clearly lower.
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March, April, and May are the months when the sprint in job creation in Spain occurs. Afterwards, in June it will continue to increase, but at a much lower rate until the slowdown in the summer months. This is a result of the great seasonality of the Spanish economy, and it means that we are now at the crest of the wave of the annual cycle.
As always in May, hospitality is what drives employment, with 30% of the total new affiliates. That is 65,000 new jobs in this sector, followed at a great distance by administrative activities, with 27,000, and commerce, with 15,000. The decisive impact of hospitality, although the truth is that the employment increase is widespread in practically all sectors.
This push from hospitality also translates into a greater increase in employment in the most tourist areas, such as Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, with about 50,000 new affiliates each. The case of the Balearic Islands is especially significant, where this figure represents an 8% increase over April. This contrasts with another island territory, the Canary Islands, where the increase is only 0.11%.
Previous levels are also surpassed in the affiliation of self-employed workers, who add 15,000 more to reach 3.46 million. In addition, as we already pointed out, foreign workers are the ones leading a great increase in affiliates, with 111,000 more, and the same happens with foreigners, who are now more than 2.8 million, representing 15% of the total workers.
Regarding seasonally adjusted data, that is, correcting for the calendar effect, there are 63,000 more affiliates, bringing the total to 22.1 million. This means chaining 64 consecutive months of increasing contributors in this series.
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If affiliation marked a great record in May, this is not the case for registered unemployment, which ended the month with 36,323 fewer unemployed. Although it is an important reduction, it is one of the worst records in this month. For example, it is clearly below the drop of 58,000 unemployed recorded in the last two years in May.
What is achieved with this reduction is that the total number of unemployed stands at 2.3 million, the lowest level in this month since 2007. A decrease that occurs in all sectors, with special incidence in absolute numbers in services, where the month ends with 30,000 fewer unemployed.
By autonomous communities, unemployment falls in all, and in absolute numbers, the 9,000 fewer unemployed in Andalusia stand out, followed by 6,900 in Madrid, and 3,800 in Madrid.
The total number of registered hires in the month was 1.3 million, of which 572,000, that is, 43%, were permanent. Among these contracts, 40% were full-time, 25% part-time, and 35% fixed discontinuous.
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