The industry generates jobs with higher salaries because they tend to be specialized and are more stable: it is more difficult to relocate a factory than an office. In the year 2000, 27 of every 100 euros produced in Catalonia were generated from the factories. Today they are 20 euros. Although it is far from the maximum levels, the weight of the industry in the GDP of 2022 and 2021 is the highest in the last three decades.
The weight loss of the industry is something that has occurred all over the world and that is not the heritage of Catalonia. The Government of the Generalitat has intensified its efforts in recent months to reverse this situation as far as possible. The most obvious example is the national plan for industry (PNI), which contemplates a total of 152 actions in the 2022-2025 period with a budget of more than 3,000 million euros. It is 77.3% more than the PNI from 2017 to 2020. “The industry is a generator of quality jobs, shared prosperity and territorial balance.
It is an essential sector, because crises such as the covid have shown the importance of embracing the maximum production processes of the value chains to make us less dependent on external contexts”, reflects the Minister of Business, Roger Torrent. “Giving ourselves industrial sovereignty is essential to strengthen ourselves in the face of the geopolitical difficulties present in the world,” he adds.
The PNI was agreed upon by the Generalitat and the unions and employers. Salvador Guillermo, director of studies and economics at Foment del Treball, warns of the special circumstances that caused a drop in activity in the sector last year. The industry's GDP fell by 2.5% in relation to 2021 while there was growth in Spain as a whole and in the euro zone.
Sources from the Business Department explain that the reduction is mainly due to the impact of the increase in costs and the scarcity of supplies due to the geopolitical situation. The most affected areas were the industrial, chemical and transport subsectors. The clearest example is the stops in the production sector, such as the Seat factory in Martorell. "These production stoppages have also had a great impact on economies such as the German one," added sources from the department.
Apart from the PNI, the economists consulted believe that Catalonia has elements to stand out. For Joan Ramon Rovira, director of the studies service of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, the arrival of European Next Generation funds can facilitate the development of the Catalan and Spanish industry. Other positive factors are that the external surplus of non-energy goods remains positive. "The competitiveness of the industry has risen since the start of the war since energy prices are lower thanks to the Iberian exceptionality", he adds. And the last advantage –according to Rovira– is that wages have grown less in Spain and Catalonia than in other neighboring countries. The professor of applied economics at the UAB Josep Oliver insists on the good performance of Catalan exports in recent years, which have given a boost to the industry.
The plan carried out by the Generalitat involves intensifying the attraction of investments of an industrial nature, maintaining the existing ones and supporting the development of the activity with aid. The three examples that mark this strategy are the electrification process of the Seat plant in Martorell, the reindustrialization of Nissan or the 600 million in the Iljin battery component factory.
About attracting investment in 2022, 85% of all the money from foreign multinationals captured by the Government was allocated to industrial projects: 527 million. "It is the highest figure in recent years," explained Empresa sources.
Regarding employment, the industry increased employment by 36,600 people in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2022. They are 6.3% more employed. If the year 2022 is analyzed in isolation, the growth of employees was 31,100.
At the end of last year the weight of employment in industry was 17.6% of the total. It is less than at the beginning of the century but more than before the pandemic. Oliver explains that “in employment one cannot be obsessed with the loss of jobs in the industry because they are always due to productivity gains”. Along the same lines, Rovira reflects that "the fact that we maintain the weight in GDP is a success because employment cannot be maintained at the same rate."
Idescat sources recall that in the data on the industry there is also a statistical effect as a result of the outsourcing of services. Before, all the cleaning teams were considered as industrial employees and now they are subcontracted personnel that are classified as service sector. The Idescat technicians do point out that in recent years, especially in the health sector, there have been companies that have increased administrative areas that end up weighing more than manufacturing activity. This causes traditional industries to end up computing as a service sector.
On the side of the unions, the workers' representatives value the opportunity that Catalonia has to grow in the industry. The general secretary of CC.OO. Catalonia, Javier Pacheco, is committed to the automotive, health, technology and agri-food sectors. "In the latter, now that we have pacified the meat industry, we must work towards digitization," he points out. The general secretary of UGT Catalunya, Camil Ros, agrees and highlights the potential, especially in the area of biomedicine, pharmaceuticals and agri-food.
In relation to the great reindustrialization process that has taken place in Catalonia this year, that of Nissan, the two great union leaders do not agree. Pacheco believes that what has been achieved has been after a "rough" process: "Something has been built from nothing." While Ros maintains that it is not a successful model because a large industry has not been able to replace Nissan.
The Generalitat works with a portfolio of 600 investment projects. These are initiatives focused especially on the industry. As for the sectors, the automotive, ICT, chemical and video game sectors stand out. The Business department stresses that they are emerging but also traditional sectors.
