Spain destroys 215,000 jobs in January and unemployment increases by 70,000 people due to the economic slowdown

The number of stopped registered in the offices of the public employment services rose by 70,744 people in January in relation to the previous month (+2.5%) after the end of the Christmas campaign, according to data published this Thursday by the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy. For its part, Social Security lost an average of 215,047 contributors in January compared to the previous month (-1.06%) due to the end of the Christmas campaign, which was especially noticeable in the hospitality and trade sectors, with the loss of 43,000 and 40,000 employed.

The rise in January this year is four times higher than that experienced in the same month of 2022, when unemployment increased by 17,173 people, but it is below those registered in 2021 (+76,216 unemployed), 2020 (+90,248) and 2019 (+83,464) and the average increase in the months of January (+81,424 unemployed). After the rebound in January, driven above all by the service sector, the total number of unemployed once again exceeded the figure of 2.9 million unemployed, which had not happened since last October.

Specifically, the first month of the year closed with 2,908,397 unemployed, “its lowest figure in a month of January since 2008,” according to Trabajo. January It is a month in which unemployment always increases due to the termination of contracts associated with the Christmas holidays. Thus, since the beginning of the comparable historical series in 1997, unemployment has never fallen in a month of January. The greatest rise in this month, of almost 200,000 unemployed, was registered in 2008, while the lowest was in 1998, when 10,285 people joined the unemployment lists.

In seasonally adjusted terms, registered unemployment decreased in the first month of 2023 by 12,462 people. In the last year, unemployment has accumulated a decrease of 241,681 unemployed, which is 6.9% less, with a drop in female unemployment of 101,378 women (-5.5%) and a drop in male unemployment of 113,303 men (- 8.8%).

Membership

At the end of January, the total number of Social Security contributors in average values ​​stood at 20,081,224 people, “the highest figure in the historical series for a month of January”, as highlighted by the Department that directs Jose Luis Escriva. It is common for jobs to be destroyed in the first month of the year due to the termination of contracts linked to Christmas. The decrease in affiliates in January of this year is greater than that experienced in 2022 (-197,750 employed) but less than that of 2021 (-218,953) and 2020 (-244,044).

In percentage terms, the Ministry has highlighted that the fall in January of this year (-1.06%) has been lower than the decreases registered in the same month of 2021 (-1.15%), 2020 (-1.26% ) and 2019 (-1.08%). In the last year, Social Security has gained 454,063 affiliates in average values, with an interannual growth of 2.3%.

In seasonally adjusted terms, the number of contributors to the Social Security chained in January its sixth consecutive monthly increase after adding the system 57,726 employed compared to December (+0.3%), up to a total of 20,298,620 affiliates. The Ministry has highlighted that this increase of 57,726 employed persons “widely” exceeds the seasonally adjusted average variation of the last three months (+19,922 contributors). Since mid-August 2021, when the level of affiliation prior to the pandemic was reached, employment has increased by 812,143 contributors.