The year 2023 closes with excellent benefits in terms of employment. A year in which Spain ended with 783,000 more jobs and almost 21.25 million employed, while unemployment fell to 11.76%. In job creation, it represents almost tripling the 279,000 jobs that were created last year and is the highest increase in a year since 2005, if we except 2021, when the jobs lost during the pandemic were recovered. It is also a much larger increase in jobs than what occurred in the years after the financial crisis.
Regarding unemployment, it is the lowest rate in a fourth quarter since 2007. In absolute numbers, there are 193,000 fewer unemployed people. In this way, last year has shown an obstacle-proof resilience, denying the forecasts of a slowdown in the behavior of the labor market.
Furthermore, for the year as a whole the unemployment rate would have fallen even more if it were not for an also positive element, such as the spectacular increase in the active population, 590,000 more. More people are working or looking for work, which therefore prevents the unemployment rate from falling even further. But it is, at the same time, good news in the sense that it is a symptom of the climate of expectations of finding a job.
Most of the employment created in 2023 came from the private sector, more than 91% of the total, with 715,900 new jobs. The Ministry of Economy highlights the reduction of the temporary employment rate to 16.5% and also that more than half of the employment created last year was for women, 56%, with an increase of 437,200 employed compared to 345,800 men.
"A year that has surprised by the resilience of employment, by its ability to continue growing despite unfavorable circumstances," says María Jesús Fernández, from Funcas.
The Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, has stated that this EPA shows the "excellent performance of the labor market", capable of "continuing to reduce the unemployment rate" and "reducing the number of families with all unemployed members below million". He also added that "it demonstrates the strength and resilience of the recovery of the Spanish economy in a delicate international context."
If we focus on the last quarter of the year, it appears that 19,000 jobs were lost. A negative but nuanced fact. On the one hand, this period is usually irregular in job creation; For example, in 2022, between the summer and the last three months of the year, many more jobs were destroyed, four times more. And on the other hand, if the seasonally adjusted data is examined, that is, separated from the calendar effect, an increase in occupancy of 0.6% is recorded.
On the other hand, in this period unemployment was reduced by 24,600 people, bringing the total number of unemployed to 2.84 million. The explanation for why unemployment drops and at the same time jobs are lost comes from the decrease in the active population in this period.
