The number of unfilled job vacancies in Spain reached a record of 149,645 during the first quarter of the year. This is a figure almost three times higher than that registered a decade ago and also reflects a particularly noticeable phenomenon in services.
According to the INE data included in the latest Quarterly Labor Cost Survey (ETCL), which since 2013 analyzes the number of unfilled jobs, the largest number of vacancies are concentrated in services, with 89.2% of the total, or 133,527.
On the other hand, the percentages are much lower in construction and industry, with 4.1% and 6.6% of the total, respectively. If in construction there are close to 6,200 unfilled jobs in construction, in industry the figure is higher, 9,917, but much lower than in services.
This trend goes against the current of what is happening in the rest of Europe, where the sectors are much more balanced. According to data published this Thursday by Eurostat, in the euro zone services, industry and construction are not so far apart, with 3.4% of vacancies in the former and 2.7% in the latter.
By autonomous communities, Madrid, with 36,812 vacancies, concentrates 24% of the total in Spain, ahead of Catalonia, which adds 29,314, 19%. They are followed by Andalusia, Valencia and Castilla y León. In La Rioja, Extremadura and Cantabria is where there is less.
Among the companies that do not have vacancies, more than 90% say that they do not need workers, although some of them, to a lesser extent, allude to the fact that the high labor cost discourages them from looking for employees. This percentage reaches 9% in Extremadura, when it is 3.1% in Catalonia and 2.7% in Madrid.
In any case, Spain is at the bottom of Europe in the weight of vacancies over total employment. According to Eurostat figures, the country’s unfilled employment rate was 0.9% in the first quarter, the lowest in the entire EU along with Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. In the euro zone, the average is 3%.
The countries in which, on the other hand, the highest percentages are registered are Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria, each of them with 4.7% of vacancies. However, in Spain vacancies rose by nearly 9,000 in the first quarter, compared to the majority trend, which consisted of a decline.
The CEOE assures that Spain does have a problem with vacancies, a position that is joined by the construction employers’ association, the CNC, which warns of the lack of qualified personnel. They disagree with the Ministry of Labor and with the unions, which play down the importance of the matter.
The argument of the department directed by Yolanda Díaz is that the number of vacancies is relatively small in a market that registers more than 4 million contracts. For the unions, if the companies have this problem, it is because they do not pay attractive enough salaries.
