Unemployment is one of the main problems of the Spanish economy and, although the situation has improved since the Great Recession of 2008, the number of employed people from 2007 has only recently been recovered and the employment rate continues to be lower than that of that year. , which represented the best performance of the Spanish labor market in the last 40 years.
However, if we analyze employment beyond quantitative variables, the quality of said employment is currently at the maximum value for the period 2007-2022, according to the synthetic index prepared by the Ramón Areces Foundation and the Ivie in the monograph Quality. of employment in Spain and its autonomous communities.
Job stability, type of working hours and occupation, work-life balance, salaries received and accident rates are some of the 18 quality indicators analyzed in this index, which in 2022 is 3.1 points higher than in 2007.
The report, prepared by Ivie researchers and professors from the University of Valencia Lorenzo Serrano and Ángel Soler, together with the economist also from the Institute Fernando Pascual, offers this indicator for the country as a whole and also by autonomous communities. The improvement between 2007 and 2022 is observed in all regions, with the sole exception of Extremadura, which is still below its 2007 level.
The greatest increases in employment quality have occurred in Catalonia, Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha and C. Valenciana, which improves 3.4 points, while the weakest have been recorded in the Canary Islands, Cantabria and Aragón (around 2 points).
In terms of overall quality of employment, the highest levels are found in the Basque Country, Madrid, Catalonia, Navarra and La Rioja, all with rates above the national average. On the contrary, the least favorable situation is shown in Extremadura, the Canary Islands, Andalusia, Murcia and the Valencian Community.
The employment quality index proposed in the report is built from 18 indicators, which have been selected from among the 40 variables analyzed in the study for which there is information at the regional level. These 18 indicators are grouped around 5 dimensions: safety and ethics (accident rate, turnover and gender gap); salary and benefits (remuneration, low wages and overtime); duration of work and work-life balance (unwanted part-time work, hours, long hours and unusual hours); security and protection (temporary employment, precariousness, seniority, hiring through ETT) and training and motivation (automation, qualification, overqualification and search for another job).
As has been mentioned, in general, the majority of communities, including Valencia, show progress in each of the five dimensions considered, which reflects a positive evolution in the quality of employment since 2007. However, that does not mean that there is no There are relevant problems, even some aggravated ones, as well as important differences between regions.