The number of people registered in the Offices of the Public State Employment Service (SEPE) at the end of June fell by 42,409 in relation to the previous month, 1.45% less. With this evolution, the registered unemployment figure for the whole of Spain stands at 2,880,582. It is the lowest level since October 2008, when the financial crisis began. Compared to June 2021, unemployment fell by 20.3%, 733,757 people.
The number of Social Security affiliates grew by 76,948 people in the last month, which is the best monthly figure compared to the pre-pandemic period. With seasonally adjusted data, the increase would be more than 115,000, which brings the system to 20,102,037 affiliates on average in seasonally adjusted terms.
Data that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has described as “simply formidable” for the current environment. “Today we have known some simply formidable data, with inflation like the one we have, with an economic crisis at the gates of Europe, like the one we are suffering with the war”, assured the president.
With this data, the first half of 2022 ends with the creation of 262,935 jobs, discounting seasonality and the calendar effect. Regarding the level of employment a year ago, growth has been 837,799 employed. After having reached the level of affiliation prior to the pandemic, last September, employment has increased by 616,000 more people. The data implies that there are more than a million jobs than at the beginning of 2019.
Job creation maintains the upward trend in permanent contracts that began after the labor reform. In June, 783,595 employment contracts of an indefinite nature were registered. 44.3% of the new contracts registered last month were indefinite contracts, which is multiplied by five the average of indefinite contracts in a month of June, with a usually temporary trend.
Currently, 79% of Social Security affiliates are registered with an indefinite contract, which is 9 points more than what was usual before the pandemic.
The average affiliation to Social Security has grown by 115,607 people, up to 20,348,330 registered (10,812,380 men and 9,535,950 women). It is the largest increase in the series in a month of June, with the exception of 2005 and 2021, conditioned by the regularization of migrants and the lifting of the state of alarm, respectively. In total, the average number of affiliates in original terms exceeds the level of a year ago by 848,053 employed persons.
By CCAA, Catalonia is the community in which unemployment fell the most 9,946 fewer unemployed, followed by Madrid where the fall in unemployed was 7,443. For its part, Andalusia is the only Autonomous Community in Spain in which unemployment increased in June. Specifically, 6,345 jobs were destroyed there.
The most notable drop in employment was registered in industry, which registered 7,148 fewer unemployed (3.95% below the previous month). It is followed by construction, a sector in which the number of unemployed fell by 4,981 (2.15%). In Services the fall was 1.99%, 41,017 fewer unemployed.
Meanwhile, unemployment increased sharply in agriculture, which in June registered 6.42% more unemployed, specifically 8,863 more unemployed than the previous month. Unemployment also rose in the group Without Previous Employment where 1,874 more unemployed were registered, 0.76%, in this case motivated by the registration in the SEPE offices of new job seekers.
One more month, women are the ones who benefit least from this improvement in the employment data. Female unemployment has fallen by just 0.99%, that is, 17,167 women found a job in May and the total unemployed stands at 1,723,815 women, which is the lowest figure since June 2009.
For its part, male unemployment stands at 1,156,767 after a fall of 2.14% in June, that is, 25,242 men found employment last month. If we compare it with June 2021, male unemployment falls by 334,962 (-22.45%) and female unemployment falls by 398,795 (-18.79%).
Unemployment of young people under 25 years of age rose slightly in June by 1,289 people (0.64%) compared to the previous month. Unemployment aged 25 and over fell by 43,698 (-1.60%). In year-on-year terms, the drop in unemployment among young people under the age of 25 is the steepest.
