Sant Cugat del Vallès recovers the title of city with the least unemployment in all of Spain, according to the publication Indicadores Urbanos presented today by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). With an unemployment rate of 5.2% at the end of 2022, the Catalan city snatches first place from Pozuelo de Alarcón (5.8%), the usual leader. Compared to last year, when it was second, the weight of the unemployed population was cut by one point.
The city was already the one with the least unemployment in 2017 -shared with Pozuelo- and 2018. A year later it fell to fourth place. Since then it has been advancing one position each year: in 2020 it was third, in 2021 second and in 2022 first.
A greater weight of qualified workers, with better training and without so many economic inequalities among residents, which results in a more homogeneous population, less exposed to unemployment, explain the position. Sant Cugat is also one of the least aged cities, with an average age of 41.3 years, the seventh youngest in Spain. And it has a high life expectancy of 84 years, within the national top ten.
The podium is completed by San Sebastián (6.5% unemployment). They are followed by Las Rozas and Majadahonda (6.7%), Getxo (6.9%), Barcelona (7%), Castelldefels (7.8%), Burgos (8.7%) and Alcobendas (8.9%), which closes the first ten positions.
On the opposite side, the cities with the most unemployment are La Línea de la Concepción (29.3%), Ceuta (28%), Linares (Jaén, 25.9%), Jerez de la Frontera and Granada (24.2% ), Algeciras (23.5%), Sanlúcar de Barrameda (23.3%), San Fernando (22.4%), Córdoba (22.2%) and Chiclana de la Frontera (22.1)%.
When comparing the cities with more and less unemployment, a clear division is noted. Those that bear the least unemployment are concentrated in the center and north of the Peninsula, while the south is left with the worst stops.
The INE also offers income data, with data from 2020, where there are not so many surprises and the pattern of greater wealth in the north and less income in the south is repeated.
San Sebastián, with an annual average of 16,836 euros per inhabitant, is the urban area with the highest income, followed by Bilbao (15,436 euros) and Madrid (15,407 euros). Torrevieja (8,441 euros), Lorca (9,402 euros) and Marbella (9,721 euros) remain with less income.
Going down to the detail of the neighborhoods, Madrid and Barcelona share the ten richest. El Viso has an average annual income per inhabitant of 40,815 euros, followed by 37,067 in Recoletos, 36,660 in Castellana, 36,045 in Piovera and 34,317 in Nueva España. All in Madrid. To find the first neighborhood outside the capital, you have to go to Les Tres Torres (32,958 euros), in sixth place. Pedralbes (32,462 euros) and Sant Gervasi-Galvany (30,407 euros) are others that break the Madrid trend of dominance.
The poorest neighborhoods are from Seville, specifically Polígono Sur (5,816 euros) and Los Pajaritos and Amate (6,043 euros). Of the fifteen with the lowest income, six are in Seville, three in Córdoba -Azahara-Palmeras, Polígono del Guadalquivir and Sector Sur-, two in Alicante, two in Madrid -San Cristobal and Pradolongo-, one in Málaga -Palma-Palmilla- and another in Murcia.
