Employment continues to show its resilience and this month of March has received an additional boost by fully including Easter and with it, the boost to employment in the tourism sector that these holidays provide. In this way, last month closed with very positive figures, especially in membership.
The highlight is the 193,585 additional Social Security affiliates, which makes it the second best month of March in the historical series, only surpassed by last year. And even more significant, with this increase the total number of affiliates is very close to 21 million. To be exact, there are 20,901,967 members on average for the month, which is a record; and if you look at the membership day by day, on the 25th it exceeded 21 million.
If the seasonally adjusted data is examined, that is, eliminating the calendar effect and seasonality, then the March average already exceeds the ceiling of 21 million affiliates for the first time. It stands at 21,032,661.
This approach to the 21 million members is something that was seen coming. Social Security itself advanced it to the social agents in a meeting two weeks ago, although without specifying precise dates of when the record would be reached. This approximation was verified in March and the figure may be exceeded before the summer, given that the coming months are traditionally very positive for employment.
The 193,000 more employed than in February is the second largest increase in this month of the year, only surpassed by the 206,000 in March 2023; and it remains well above the average for the pre-pandemic years, when between 2017 and 2019 the increase stood at around 150,000 employed people.
If examined by sector, affiliation increases in all, but especially in the hospitality industry, with 81,000 new jobs, that is, 42% of the total new affiliations. They are followed at a distance by commerce (13,000), education (11,000), construction (6,800) and manufacturing (4,500).
The Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security also highlights that the percentage of members with a permanent contract stands at 87.3%, which is its historical maximum, leaving the temporary employment rate at 12.7%. For those under 30 years of age, temporary employment continues to be higher, but its rate of decline is also more intense, such that it has gone from 53% before the labor reform to 19.4% today.
On the unemployment side, March has meant a significant reduction in registered unemployment. There are 33,405 fewer unemployed than the previous month, which leaves the total number at 2,727,003, the lowest figure for a month of March since 2008. Unemployment is reduced in practically all sectors, but the one that stands out is the services which, with 31,000 fewer unemployed, account for 95% of the total reduction in unemployment.
This decrease in unemployment is lower than that which occurred in March of last year, when it fell by 48,000, and is also below the pre-pandemic average, for the years 2017-2019, when it fell by 43,000 unemployed.
By autonomous community, unemployment only rises in the Basque Country and Madrid, and on the other hand, where it falls the most is in Andalusia, with 11,000 fewer, followed by the Canary Islands, Valencia, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha and Catalunya, among others.
In the month of March, 1.1 million contracts were signed, of which 504,000 (44.94%) were indefinite. Of this type of hiring, 45% were full-time, 25% part-time and 30% permanent discontinuous.
