Alejandra Olcese
Updated Tuesday, April 2, 2024-23:40
Affiliation Easter leaves 193,585 new jobs in the second best March of the series: 43% in hospitality
Spain
closed the month of March with
3.35 million self-employed workers
affiliated to Social Security on average, which brings the country closer to the
record recorded in 2008
, when 3.41 million self-employed workers were exceeded in the prelude to the Great Recession.
Since then, the country has never before been so close to recovering that level of self-employed workers registered in the system, an achievement that has been achieved after in March the group grew by 15,434 members,
almost 500 new self-employed workers every day
. as reported this Tuesday by Social Security.
This recovery in self-employment also occurs in a context of
improved affiliation
to the General Regime, which implies that it is not because salaried employment is going badly and is expelling workers and forcing them to set up their business, as has happened in the past.
The number of self-employed people in the country fell sharply after the burst of the
real estate bubble
and reached its minimum in 2013, falling below 3 million, but since then it has grown continuously until now reaching a second historical peak.
Its good performance is in line with that of the total number of Social Security affiliates, which last month exceeded
20.9 million people
, after adding 193,585 workers in the second best March in the historical series.
Although the number of self-employed workers in Spain is close to the record recorded sixteen years ago, the
composition
of the group has changed a lot in terms of activity, gender or nationality.
According to Social Security data, where the number of self-employed workers has grown the most in relative terms is in
health activities and social services
(with a growth of 88% or 64,500 more self-employed workers); real estate activities (+85.4% or 26,170 more); information and communications (+79% or 45,600 more); energy supply (+78% or 872 more); artistic activities (+65% or 32,600 more) and
professional, scientific and technical activities,
with an increase of 62% or 125,297 more self-employed workers.
The latter is the activity that has registered the greatest growth in absolute terms (number of workers), which according to the Ministry of Social Security and the main self-employed associations demonstrates the
sophistication
of the sector. "It should be noted that the affiliation of the most qualified sectors continues to increase if we compare it with previous years,"
Eduardo Abad
, president of
UPTA
, celebrated this Tuesday, who took pride in the fact that "for the first time a total of self-employed workers is registered above 3,350,000, representing an absolute record in recent years".
Among the activities in which the number of self-employed workers has fallen,
construction
stands out , with 20% less or 100,752 fewer businesses, due to the bursting of the bubble and the subsequent crisis; commerce, with a decrease of 7% or 56,000 fewer self-employed workers; the manufacturing industry, in which there are 20.4% fewer self-employed workers or 52,200 fewer workers, or agriculture, where the number of self-employed workers has fallen by 14% in these fifteen years (42,437 fewer self-employed workers).
Women lead entrepreneurship
It is striking that the growth in the number of self-employed workers that has occurred in recent years is entirely due to the
female gender
, who has joined self-employment en masse. Today Spain has 160,065 more self-employed women than in 2009, while the number of men with a business has fallen by 60,378. They have undertaken, above all,
wholesale
trade (which today has 338,000 more self-employed workers);
professional, scientific and technical activities
(+140,300) and
hospitality
(+137,355).
Regarding nationalities, Social Security offers a breakdown of the group of
foreigners
since 2012, which shows that since then the number of self-employed workers of other nationalities
has grown by 228,439,
leaving the increase in native self-employed workers at 63,000. The nationalities with the greatest increase in self-employed workers are
Chinese
(with 27,000 more self-employed workers),
Italian
(+25,145),
Romanian
(+24,161), Venezuelan (+17,548), Moroccan (+15,341) and Colombian (+10,162).
The growth in the number of self-employed has not been homogeneous throughout the country.
Málaga, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas
, Cádiz, the Balearic Islands and Seville are the provinces that have recorded the greatest growth in self-employed workers in the last fifteen years, but there are 32 of the 52 Spanish provinces in which the number of self-employed workers has fallen. Those that have suffered the greatest bleeding are those in the
northern half of the peninsula.
In absolute terms
Asturias
is in the lead, with 10,900 fewer self-employed workers; followed by Lugo (-8,877), La Coruña (-8,100), Guipúzcoa (-8,036) and Zaragoza (-8,006). In percentage terms, the greatest falls occur in Lugo, Palencia, Orense, Lérida and León.
By age, the number of older self-employed people has grown a lot due to the
aging
of the population: the number of those over 50 years old has grown by 430,900 self-employed workers (with 111,304 more self-employed workers over 64 years old), while it has fallen the number of self-employed people under 40 years of age is 210,200.