Alejandra Olcese
Updated Saturday, January 27, 2024-02:10
EPA Employment grew by 783,000 workers in 2023 to 21.24 million and unemployment fell to 11.7%
Spain
has managed to create
783,000 new jobs in 2023
, which represents the largest increase in employment since 2005 - ignoring the one that occurred in 2021 to recover what was lost during the pandemic - but
56.8% of the
total New workers who have joined the labor market have done so in
positions of less than 6 hours a day.
According to data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) published this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics, a total of
445,100 new employees
work
less than 30 hours a week
in their main job (or 6 a day) and, of them, 267,400 (34% of the total) do it less than 20 hours a week (4 a day). Employment among those who work 6 to 8 hours a day has increased by 251,400 people (32.1% of the total number of new employees) and the number of those who work more than 8 hours has increased by 86,500 in 2023 (11% ). In this last group, there is a decrease in those who have longer hours, above 50 hours per week (10 per day). In total, the country has added 783,000 workers, but not all of them effectively work eight hours a day in their main job.
This implies that the
average number of effective hours
worked by all workers in the country has fallen in 2023 to
31.7 hours per week
(6 hours and 34 minutes a day), compared to
32 hours in 2022
and 33.8 hours per week. They worked on average before the pandemic. In aggregate terms,
the total number of hours
worked by all employees in the country
has grown by 3.3%
, but this is a lower increase than the number of
employed people
, of
3.8%,
because the people They enter the labor market and work less time.
Compared to the last comparable period before the pandemic, in 2019, the proportion of workers who dedicate less than 6 hours a day to employment has grown, going from 21.9% of the total (4.4 million) to 28.7 % in the last quarter (6.1 million). As there is an increasing proportion of people who work less time, there is a
divergence
between the evolution of the number of employed people and the number of hours:
total hours worked have grown by 1.76%
since the pandemic, while the number of
employed people
has increased
6.4%.
This lower growth in hours than in working people is caused by many diverse factors, among which are the needs for part-time labor that some sectors and companies have due to their own peculiarities and the seasonality of their activity; the decisions of some employees who do not want to work more hours per week; the delay in the retirement age - which leads some older workers to extend their working life by reducing their working time -; and, above all, the
sectoral recomposition of the Spanish economy,
with a growth in jobs that are less intensive in hours, such as those related to Information and Communication Technologies, and a decrease in the weight of others such as agriculture that require more average work time.
Professional, scientific and technical activities
-
with the most added value - are those that
have created
the most employment in the year
(165,300 more employed)
, followed by health activities (+100,800), food and beverage services (+87,000) and retail trade -except vehicles- (+73,400).
Misalignment with GDP
That the number of employed people increases and the number of hours worked decreases
is not necessarily a negative combination,
since it can be justified by an
increase in
productivity
, that is, that workers as a whole are capable of generating the same or more production quantity.
However, if this gain in productivity does not occur, then
the mismatch
between hours and number of workers will result in the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) advancing at a slower rate than employment
, something that
Funcas
already foresees : "On the whole of the year, employment growth has been higher than GDP growth, which is estimated (in the absence of knowing the data for the last quarter) at 2.4%", data that will be known next Tuesday.
Although 57% of newly employed workers declare that they work less than 6 hours a day,
they do not consider that they have a part-time day.
According to the EPA, of the new employees, only 87,600 (11.2%) have a part-time contract, because that depends on the perception of the employee. Even if you work six hours a day, due to the type of work you do and the distribution of your time, you can tell your interviewer that you work full time. "The distinction is based on the assessment of the interviewee," explains the INE in the EPA methodology, although it specifies that those that are less than 35 hours per week will not be accepted as part-time work, nor will work that exceeds 35 hours per week be accepted as full-time work. 30 hours.
88.8% of the employment created
last year is, according to the EPA,
full-time,
but that
does not translate into positions of eight
effective hours of work per day, the latter being understood as "the hours worked during normal working time." , the time spent at the workplace waiting or remaining available, as well as short rest periods at the workplace, including snack breaks of less than one hour, explains the INE. "Vacation days, vacations, holidays, absences due to illness and other paid reasons, as well as time not worked due to being affected by an employment regulation; Nor does it include the time spent traveling to or from the workplace or meal breaks of more than one hour," they point out.