Alejandra Olcese

Updated Friday, February 2, 2024-23:25

  • Unemployment Employment falls by 231,250 people in January due to hospitality and commerce, in line with previous years

The good performance of the labor market, with the constant

creation of jobs

despite the economic slowdown and international uncertainty, encourages worker

turnover

, hence in 2023 a total of

11,144 people on average will resign from their positions every year. day

, 7% more than the previous year and 37% more than before the pandemic.

According to Social Security data published this Friday, January was a weak month for employment as it always is, with the

destruction of 231,250 jobs

- almost half in hospitality and commerce due to the end of the Christmas season. However, in the last twelve months, membership has grown by

523,537 people

, a rate of job creation of 2.61% year-on-year, to exceed 20.6 million members, a record for the month of January.

In seasonally adjusted terms - which allow us to know how the labor market has functioned each month if the behavior typical of the time in which we find ourselves is ignored, that is, if the seasonal aspect is eliminated -, employment would have grown by

38,357 people in January

, according to the Social Security model, and the number of affiliates would have exceeded 20.8 million.

This positive evolution means that

companies continue hiring

despite economic difficulties and that employees have the possibility of leaving their job to move to a better one, something that happens especially in economic sectors with a

lower level of unemployment,

where there are even vacancies without cover and employees can negotiate better conditions.

According to the Active Population Survey, at the end of 2023 the activities that have

the lowest unemployment rates

(proportion of unemployed over total assets) are the extractive industries (0.3%); real estate activities (0.6%); the supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning (1.9%), and professional, scientific and technical activities (3.2%). This last category includes computer scientists, programmers and developers, one of the professions with the most demand for workers.

On the contrary, the activities with

the highest unemployment rates

are agriculture and livestock (13.9%); hospitality (13.3%); artistic, recreational and entertainment activities (10.3%); and domestic employment (9.9%). In some of these, such as the countryside and the hospitality industry, many areas of Spain lack workers, but the low mobility of the unemployed makes it difficult to fill vacancies despite high unemployment rates.

The good pace of job creation that the country has experienced since the recovery from the financial crisis has increased the number of people who voluntarily leave their jobs, going from 3,047

resignations daily in 2012

to

8,129 in 2019.

In In 2020, due to the pandemic, resignations fell to 5,537, mainly due to workers' fear of not finding another job if they left theirs, but since 2021 they have risen again to reach 11,144.

In addition to the good employment performance, the

change in preferences

driven by the pandemic has had an influence, with workers' greater awareness of their health and working conditions.

"In the United States , the process of voluntary abandonment of employment by large groups of workers

has been called

the Great Resignation . The reasons are attributed to a set of factors, among which are

concern for health,

health care needs, dependent people and the availability of extraordinary benefits. The influence of structural changes has also been pointed out, which would reflect changes in workers' preferences," analyzed

Francisco Javier Mato

, from the University of Oviedo, in an article by

Funcas

.

According to the OECD, “the rejection of

precarious working conditions and low wages

may be promoting labor shortages in a context of increased demand for products and disruptions in supply chains. The difficulties of companies in managing their human resources in such a way that production needs and the needs of workers are satisfied at the same time would also be contributing to this. In Spain, most companies show very little interest in the work environment and the degree of staff satisfaction," they add.