Unemployment in Spain falls below 10% for the first time in 18 years

Employment in Catalonia and Spain continued to grow in the last three months of 2025, reaching record highs. This led to the unemployment rate falling to its lowest level in almost two decades in Spain, below the 10% mark, according to data from the Labor Force Survey (EPA) published this Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). In Catalonia, however, the unemployment rate rose slightly. Thus, the unemployment rate in Catalonia was 8.24% in the fourth quarter of 2025, six hundredths of a percentage point higher than... the 8.18% recorded in the previous quarterHowever, the increase in the unemployment rate occurred despite a reduction of approximately 900 people in the total number of unemployed workers in one quarter, which stood at 351,200. This is because, proportionally, the number of unemployed decreased at a slower pace than the total number of people (employed or unemployed) active in the labor market, which fell from 4.3 million to 4.26 million between the third and last quarters of last year. As for the total number of employed people—that is, workers with jobs—in Catalonia, the figure fell by approximately 37,400 to 3,913,200. Low unemployment rates in the State

Across the country, the number of employed people increased to 22,463,300 (22,462,900 adjusted for seasonal effects), a record high and 0.34% higher than the previous quarter. In seasonally adjusted terms, there are 606,200 more employed people in Spain than a year ago, a rise of 2.77%. This increase in employment pushed the unemployment rate in Spain down by more than half a percentage point to 9.93%, placing it below the symbolic 10% mark for the first time since the first quarter of 2008. The number of unemployed fell to 2,477,100.

"Employment maintains its dynamism and even accelerates its growth rate at the end of the year," highlighted the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, in a message sent to the media, in which he also emphasized "the drive of the private sector" in job creation. According to the minister, the labor market is "stronger" and "more stable" than it was a few years ago. Similarly, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, also celebrated the drop in unemployment in Spain with a message on social media in which he asserted that there is "more stability, less youth unemployment, and more quality jobs."

Despite the Spanish government's optimism, the country's unemployment rate remains higher than that of the rest of the European Union, where the average stands at 6% (6.3% if only the 21 countries that share the euro are considered). In fact, until the third quarter of 2025, Spain was the member state with the highest unemployment and the only one, along with Finland—a country mired in an economic crisis for years—to exceed the 10% mark. These figures contrast sharply with Germany, for example, a country that has experienced two years of recession and yet had an unemployment rate of 3.9% last summer.