Catalonia has recovered some of its labor market momentum after the pandemic, but there is a worrying group of 1.4 million workers for whom employment does not free them from living trapped in poverty and without opportunities for social mobility.Job insecurity is the new normal "For a segment of society," according to Cáritas, in a report on exclusion and social development prepared with the FOESSA Foundation based on interviews with 140,000 households across the country and across all socioeconomic backgrounds. The study concludes that the overall improvement in macroeconomic indicators is not reflected in daily life. Many family members are employed, and even those fortunate enough to access social benefits struggle to make ends meet. In this dramatic equation of an active labor market and increased social vulnerability, it is important to consider that salary increases do not offset rising prices (the CPI). The difficulties faced by undocumented immigrants in finding work also contribute to this. Furthermore, exorbitant housing prices force families into precarious living conditions. sublet rooms or to allocate more than half of the income to pay rent or mortgages to avoid becoming homeless.

In Catalonia we have the lowest unemployment rate since 2008. And yet, something is jarring. How is it possible that 16.2% of working people live in poverty? How can one in four people be at risk of social exclusion? If having a job no longer guarantees a decent life, perhaps we should ask ourselves what value work has today.

Morocco is a country that is geographically close and with which Catalonia has had important economic relations for a long time. At the same time, Catalonia hosts an important Moroccan immigrant community. Even so, we do not know many things about its harsh socio-economic reality. This Monday, floods in Tangier caused the death of at least 28 workers (19 women and 9 men) in an illegal textile workshop. The women, who worked underground, drowned, while the men were electrocuted when the water came into contact with the machinery. As already happened with the collapse of an illegal factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2013, where more than 1,000 workers died, the accident has exposed the harsh reality of illegal textile workshops, where people work in unhealthy conditions for low wages, as if we were still in the England portrayed by Dickens.