Foment warns that the housing situation hinders the hiring of workers in SMEs

BarcelonaA report by Foment Pime –the SME sector of the Catalan business association Foment– maintains that the lack of affordable housing is no longer an "exclusively social" problem, but has also become a "labor and economic" difficulty, especially for SMEs, which have more difficulty hiring staff than large companies. In a press conference, the president of the Territorial Council of SMEs –which brings together about twenty territorial organizations of Foment–, Pep Garcia, explained that the residential emergency "is a direct barrier that affects the competitiveness of SMEs" and has appealed to seal a great public-private agreement to facilitate access to housing in Catalonia.

The report points out that SMEs are the "most affected" by this problem, and not large companies, since a multinational "can pay salaries of between 70,000 and 90,000 euros per year that absorb the cost of housing in a city like Barcelona". On the other hand, SMEs "cannot compete in this segment", which causes a "segmented" labor market, in which "qualified talent gravitates towards large companies or towards cities with more accessible housing", says the document.

Garcia explained that more than 200,000 new households were created in Catalonia between 2021 and 2025, but only 61,000 new homes were built, so if the supply gap "does not close", prices will continue to rise, as has happened in the first half of 2026, with an increase in the price of housing in Catalonia of 10.5% year-on-year. "Finding staff is difficult, and the housing situation makes it even more complicated," said Salvador Guillermo, director of studies and economy at Foment.

A housing supplement

The employers' association study highlights that the housing problem is so urgent in some parts of Catalonia that in SMEs in the Vallès or the Bages –regions of the province of Barcelona– some companies are paying specific housing salary supplements to be able to secure industrial technicians. However, Guillermo opined that measures of this style are "a stopgap" and not a solution, and he criticized the lack of investment in housing policy both in Catalonia and in Spain as a whole. In this sense, the report proposes launching an industrial land plan whereby "in new business parks and next-generation industrial estates" a "percentage of land for worker housing" is reserved.

Also regarding labor matters, the report warns that in the first half of this year there were 31,943 unfilled job vacancies in Catalonia. Regarding talent attraction, the report highlights that, even though the labor market is at its peak, SMEs have difficulties finding technical profiles due to a "mismatch between educational supply and business demand" which makes it necessary, in the view of the employers' association, to better coordinate vocational training plans between administrations and companies.

The other challenges

In parallel to the lack of affordable housing and the difficulties in attracting talent, the report identifies inflation and the increase in operating costs as one of the main challenges for SMEs. Foment underlines that the increase in costs "squeezes" the operating margins of SMEs despite the GDP growth in Catalonia, which reduces the ability of these companies to reinvest their own resources to grow the size of the company and, therefore, gain productivity and competitiveness.

Garcia recalled that SMEs represent more than 95% of Catalan companies and that, consequently, they are the basis of the Catalan productive fabric: "There will be no industrial, technological and export future without companies that can grow in size, productivity, internationalization and innovation capacity," he said. However, the report points out that the pressure is asymmetric on companies. The hospitality and retail sectors have low pricing power and may find greater difficulties in fully passing on the increase in costs to final prices. On the other hand, the technical manufacturing sector has long-term contracts with which it can compensate for the increase in costs if productivity improves.

The study also points out other difficulties for SMEs to grow their size, such as excessive regulations, taxation, administrative barriers and the increased cost of private financing, among others.