Unemployment grows in Catalonia by 24% in the worst start to the year since 2012

The first quarters are traditionally not good for employment, as they are heavily marked by the end of the Christmas campaign. This year, Catalonia added 84,400 unemployed people in absolute terms between January and March, 24% more than the previous quarter, the worst inter-quarter increase since 2012. It is the second autonomous community with the highest increase, only behind the Balearic Islands, where the number of unemployed people soared by 76.55% inter-month.According to the Active Population Survey (EPA) published this Tuesday, the Catalan unemployment rate stood at 10.12%. The National Statistics Institute (INE) estimates that in Catalonia there were 435,600 people who wanted to join the labor market and could not. At the end of last year, unemployment stood at 8.24%.If we compare it to the first quarter of 2025, the number of unemployed people in Catalonia increased by 15.71%, precisely because the beginning of the year is complicated in terms of employment. Last year, Catalonia already experienced the worst start to the year since 2012, adding 47,200 new unemployed peopleCatalonia already experienced the worst start to the year since 2012, adding 47,200 new unemployed people, which raised the unemployment rate to 8.91%. In inter-annual terms, Catalonia continues to be the second autonomous community with the highest increase in the unemployed, only behind Navarre. Between January and March, there were 3,867,000 employed people in Catalonia, fewer than the almost four million from the last quarter of last year. 46,300 jobs were destroyed, which caused a decrease in employment of -1.18% compared to the previous quarter. On the other hand, in inter-annual terms, employment grew by 0.44%, adding 16,900 people to the labor market.Record employment in Spain

Across the State, the unemployment rate was 10.83%, the lowest level in a first quarter since 2008. The number of employed people broke a new record, surpassing for the first time the threshold of 22.5 million people, after adding 532,300 workers in the last year. Without taking into account the seasonality typical of the beginning of the year, it added 96,800 people to the labor market, 0.43% more than in the last quarter of last year. In absolute terms, however, between January and March in the State, 170,300 jobs were destroyed.The year-on-year increase in employment advanced in parallel with the active population –people of working age–, which also reached a new historical maximum, standing above 25 million people. In the last year, Spain added 447,000 people capable of joining the labor market.