• Radiography The State, the great contractor: 55% of the jobs created since the pandemic are public

Public employment has grown in Spain by 22,842 people in the first quarter of the year, the largest increase in personnel at the service of the Public Administration in this period since 2015, in which regional and general elections were also held in Spain.

According to the public employment data updated at the end of March published yesterday by the Ministry of Social Security, with this increase in personnel the total of average affiliates in the public sector stands at 2,903,492 people, a historical record, to which we should add public employees who are not registered with Social Security because they belong to mutual societies.

This increase in affiliates between January and March (at the end of December 2022 there were 2,880,650 public employees in the country), has occurred despite the fact that in health, one of the sectors with the most personnel deficit and in which more mobilizations are taking place, personnel have been destroyed.

In the first three months of the year, the number of public health workers has fallen by 14,887, bringing the total number of employees in health activities to 752,347. According to CSIF, the majority union of civil servants and staff of the Administration, "9,500 primary care doctors, 130,000 nursing professionals, 1,250 midwives, 1,100 pediatricians and 44,000 auxiliaries" are needed in Spain for Spain to reach the average of professionals in the European Union. They also estimate that "it is necessary to hire 176,000 positions in other categories, such as clinical psychologists, physiotherapists, social workers, or Management and Services personnel throughout the National Health System."

This loss of public employees in this sector has been offset by the reinforcement of other departments of the Administration, such as Education, where 16,356 personnel have been incorporated in the first quarter -a figure partly distorted by the dismissals that traditionally occur before the Christmas holidays-, or the incorporation of 15,166 workers in the Public Administration, Defense and Social Security.

Public procurement in Research and Development follows a long way (1,957 new affiliates in the first quarter); those of collection, treatment and disposal of waste (+1,632) or those of technical services of architecture and engineering, where 1,294 people have been incorporated. These last two areas are closely linked to the deployment of European funds.

Along with health, the other sector in which there has been a loss of personnel is in Postal and Post Office Activities, that is, in the public company of Correos where 2,233 affiliates have been lost in the quarter -mostly due to uncovered retirements-. For this reason and before the imminent peak of work for the elections, the company has already announced that it will carry out 2,500 reinforcement contracts for the regional and municipal elections on May 28. In addition, this Sunday will take place the entrance tests in the company to cover 7,757 permanent jobs in operational categories throughout Spain.

By administrations, the State has incorporated 3,226 people in the first quarter; the Autonomous Communities, 12,335, and local authorities, 7,281; and by gender, 10,398 men and 12,443 women have been added in this period, with which the gap increases in favor of the latter: there are 1.73 million public employees in Spain compared to 1.16 million men.

The map of new public employment

Catalonia is the autonomous community in which more public personnel have been incorporated in the first quarter of the year, with the increase of 9,138 people (40% of total hirings), most of them residing (7,097) in Barcelona. The bulk of these reinforcements have occurred in the regional administration (+8,795) and the local (+593), while the State troops in that region have fallen by 250 people.

It is followed by the Community of Madrid, with the incorporation of 4,269 people, of which almost half (2,014) are State personnel, while 2,189 have been hired by the autonomous community and 65 by the local; Andalusia, with 3,503 new public sector members; Castilla-La Mancha, with 3,140 incorporations, and Galicia, where 1,798 public employees have joined.

Although these are the regions where public employment has increased the most, not in all cases it has been the sole responsibility of the regional government. If regional hiring is analyzed, Catalonia leads the ranking, followed by the Valencian Community (with 3,245 new public employees hired by the Generalitat) and the Community of Madrid is in third place, with 2,189 new employees in charge of the regional government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

There have been, however, regional governments that have dispensed with public personnel, such as the Andalusian (-2,065), the Canary Islands (-1,578) and the Basque (-882).

  • Social security
  • Officials
  • Employment
  • Education
  • Health

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