Catalonia sees biggest unemployment fall with 110,200 fewer unemployed in 2016

BarcelonaUnemployment fell by 110,200 in Catalonia in 2016, according to the latest Labour Force Survey (LFS, or EPA in Spanish) published by Spain’s National Statistics Institute (NSI) this morning. Catalonia is the autonomous region which saw the biggest decrease in unemployment, with a drop of 14.85% for the year as a whole. It is also the Spanish region which creates the largest number of jobs: 100,800 more jobs were created in 2016 than in 2015, with a total of 3,202,600, representing an increase of 3.2%.

For Spain as a whole, unemployment fell by 541,700 in 2016, some 11.3% less than in 2015, representing a decline for the fourth consecutive year and one of the largest ever recorded. Nevertheless, this represents a smaller drop in unemployment than the previous year, which saw a historic fall of 678,200.

Meanwhile, employment grew by 413,900 in 2016 (that is nearly 2.3%), achieving its third consecutive annual increase. Nonetheless, the figures for 2014 and 2015, when 433,900 and 525,100 jobs were created respectively represent a larger increase in employment, according to NSI figures released on Thursday.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy praised the efforts made by Spain, while declaring that "an economic crisis lasting five years can’t be solved in a quarter of an hour". Rajoy claimed that, as a consequence, Spain needs to continue with its current strategy: "If we can maintain our economic policies [...] we will have a workforce of 20 million". "In 2014, 2015 and 2016 unemployment figures fell by more than 500,000, but we have to keep up the momentum", Rajoy stated once the figures relating to 2016 were confirmed by the LFS. The Spanish Prime Minister added that "most of the jobs that have been created in recent years have been for the young".

Thus, 2016 ended with 4,237,800 jobless people and 18,508,100 in employment, the lowest figure since the third quarter of 2009. Therefore, at the close of 2016 the unemployment rate stood at 18.63%, almost 2.3% less than in 2015 (20.9%) and an all-time low since the third quarter of 2009.

The drop in unemployment in 2016 represents four consecutive years of decreases after six years of increases. In 2015, unemployment saw a record decrease for the period, with 678,200 fewer unemployed.

All the jobs created last year were concentrated in the private sector with 428,500 new jobs (+ 2.8%), while the public sector lost 14,600 jobs in the same year (-0.49 %). 19,400 jobs were lost in the fourth quarter of 2016, 0.1% less than in the previous quarter. This setback contrasts with the gains made in employment in the fourth quarter of 2014 (65,100) and 2015 (45,500).