In 2024, there were 152,981 people in Catalonia working part-time and who would like to work more hours. This is the underemployed population, a new labor indicator that the Generalitat (Catalan Government) presented this Friday through the Labor and Production Model Observatory. The government has also defined the concept of underutilized labor force, a measure that expands the unemployed population of the EPA (Spanish Employment Agency) and incorporates the underemployed, the inactive who are available for work in the next 15 days but are not seeking employment (83,485 people); and the inactive who are seeking work but are not available for work (50,867 people). In total, there is a volume of 660,983 underutilized labor force in Catalonia, a rate of 15.3%.
Unemployment rises in Catalonia in summer despite record employment
Spain also reached a record high number of people in the labor market
BarcelonaJuly, August, and September, the three busiest months of the tourist season in our country, closed with a new record for employment in Catalonia, but also with more people losing their jobs. This is indicated by data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) published this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
The unemployment rate in Catalonia rose slightly in the third quarter to 8.18%. (the previous figure was 8.11%) and 3,800 more unemployed people were added, bringing the total number to 352,100. This is the first increase in unemployment in a summer since 2022, after two years in which these months eased the employment service lists. In any case, there are 21,800 fewer unemployed now than a year ago, a reduction of 5.83%.
In terms of employment, 5,900 new workers were added and Catalonia reached a new historical record of employed people, approaching four million (3,950,600). However, this 0.15% increase was small compared to the increase of 94,600 employed people recorded in the second quarter, when summer hiring is anticipated. In fact, it is the weakest summer since 2012 in terms of employment growth. Even so, the Government's Secretary of Labor, Paco Ramos, ruled out a "slowdown" in the labor market. "I see good dynamism," he said of the EPA data. Compared to 2024, employment grew by 89,400 workers, a boost of 2.32%.
This slowdown is explained precisely by the job losses experienced in the services sector (with the exception of commerce), coinciding with record tourism in Catalonia. This industry registered 21,100 fewer workers than in the previous quarter (-0.71%). For example, the hospitality industry lost 30,800 workers, a 9.8% reduction, while during the same period last year it added 28,200 employees. This marks three quarters of decline for this activity, and Ramos admitted that the figures would have been better without this decline in the hospitality industry.
In fact, all other economic activities did close this period with more employees than in the second quarter. Industry added 13,200 new employees (+1.98%); construction, 9,200 (+3.78%); and agriculture, 4,500 (+8.67%).
As for the long-term unemployed, who have been looking for work for more than a year, this group of 102,900 people has increased compared to the third quarter of 2024 in Catalonia and represents 29% of the total. "There is a pool of long-term unemployed that is somewhat stagnant," Ramos noted. In this regard, he proposed acting with measures related to education, given that 40% do not have a compulsory secondary education and an additional 22% have only completed compulsory education. "It is an element that makes us reflect," said the Secretary of Labor of the Government.
For their part, the CCOO and UGT celebrated the new employment record in Catalonia, but warned that the slight increase in unemployment and the situation of women and the long-term unemployed demonstrate that there are "important pending tasks" in the labor market.
More unemployed in the whole of Spain
Across Spain, the third quarter saw nearly 22.4 million employed people (22,387,100), also a new all-time high. Between July and September, employment increased by 118,400 compared to the previous quarter, a 0.53% increase. In the last 12 months, this increase has already reached 562,500 workers who have entered the labor market, a 2.59% increase.
In this context of good employment, however, the unemployment rate rose to 10.45%, a higher percentage than the previous quarter, when it was 10.29%. According to the Spanish Employment Agency (EPA), the state added 60,100 unemployed people during the summer months, leaving the total number of unemployed at 2,613,200.
In fact, the employment rate for the population aged 16 to 65 also reached a new record, reaching 68.2%, almost three-tenths of a percentage point higher than in the second quarter. According to the Ministry of Economy, these figures "corroborate the dynamism of the labor market, in which the working population grew to over 25 million people for the first time, with an increase of 178,500 people in the first quarter compared to the previous quarter."