The Maresme region has closed the first quarter of the year expanding both jobs and the number of companies. Specifically, with regard to jobs, at the end of March it had registered 145,465 Social Security affiliations, 4,295 more than the previous year and the second highest figure for this month since 2008. A positive evolution in parallel to the business fabric, which has also grown to reach 12,144 contribution accounts.
This is extracted from the latest Quarterly Report on the labor market and business fabric prepared by the Study Office of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona and published by the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona in Maresme, which in addition to analyzing the behavior of the business fabric, jobs and affiliation, includes the unemployment figure registered in the region during Q1 of 2024.
The number of companies (contribution accounts) in the Maresme region has increased by 1.2% at the end of March 2024 compared to a year ago (142 more companies), up to 12,114 companies, an evolution equal to that recorded by the whole of Catalonia (1.2%). Likewise, compared to the previous quarter, an increase of 1.7% was recorded in the region (202 more companies).
By sectors, the business fabric compared to the previous year has decreased by 21 companies in industry (-1.6%), it has remained the same in agriculture, increasing by 1.5% in construction and services (20 and 143 companies more, respectively). According to size, the number of companies has only decreased by one company (-3.3%) in large companies (250 or more workers); while in the rest of the sections it has increased more intensely as the size increases: 0.9% among microenterprises (up to nine workers) —which represent 84.9% of the total—, 2.8% in small companies (10 to 49 workers) and 5.9% in medium ones (50 to 249 workers).
The number of jobs (Social Security affiliations according to company headquarters in the general regime and in the special regime for self-employed workers) in the region has increased by 3.0% at the end of March 2024 compared to a year ago, up to 145,465, the second highest figure for this month since 2008 (beginning of the available series)1, only behind the figure for June 2023 (145,475). However, this growth is very similar to that registered by Catalonia as a whole (3.3%).
Depending on the type of affiliation regime, there is an annual growth of 3.6% in the number of employees and 1.3% of the self-employed in the region, in line with what happened in Catalonia as a whole (a 3.4% salaried and 1.4% self-employed).
By large economic sectors, the number of self-employed has only increased in services (1.9%) and has decreased by 0.2% in industry and 0.7% in construction, while the number of salaried employees /as has increased in services and industry (4.2% and 1.5%, respectively), and has practically remained the same in construction (-0.2%).