The CEOE's complaints about the number of unfilled jobs contrast with Spain's relative position compared to neighboring countries. It is, in the euro zone, the one with the fewest job vacancies, equivalent to barely 0.9% in the second quarter of the year, according to data published today by Eurostat.
The latest calculations from the European Statistical Office are provisional and currently include a reduced sample of six countries. However, they show that, despite the record number of active population and the drop in unemployment in the second quarter recorded by the EPA, the job vacancy rate in Spain has remained at the same percentage as three months earlier.
The average for the euro zone stands at 3%, 2.1 points more than in Spain, while at a European level the percentage is 2.8%. The Netherlands, with 4.7%, and Germany, with 4%, are among those who find it more difficult to cover the job offer, while in Slovenia the rate is 2.9%, and 2.2 % in Italy.
There is only one European country with fewer job vacancies out of the total than Spain: Romania, which is not part of the euro zone and whose percentage in the second quarter was 0.8%.
Despite the fact that Spain does not have a problem of unfilled employment compared to the rest of Europe, the latest INE Quarterly Labor Cost Survey, published in June, registered a record number of vacancies in the country, of 149,645 in the first quarter of the year, almost three times more than a decade ago, at the worst moment of the previous economic crisis.
Services are the area in which it is most difficult to find workers, with 89.2% of the total, or 133,527. On the other hand, the percentages are much lower in construction and industry, with 4.1% and 6.6% of the total, respectively.
The CEOE insists that Spain does have a problem of unfilled jobs and insufficient generational replacement in companies that will rise in the coming years, as the number of workers of retirement age increases. Some business associations such as CNC construction say there is a shortage of skilled workers.
For the Ministry of Labor, the number of vacancies is relatively small in a market that registers more than 4 million contracts, although the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, led by José Luis Escrivá, has shown itself to be in favor of raising the Procurement at source in third countries. The unions, on the other hand, argue that if companies have this problem, it is because they do not pay attractive enough salaries.
