Two out of every three Catalan SMEs have had problems filling vacancies with the candidates they would have liked because these candidates withdrew when they saw they would have trouble finding an affordable place to live. In fact, half of the country's small and medium-sized enterprises admit that they have abandoned growth projects, either by expanding their workforce or by opening new centers, due to the same issue. Because of the residential strain that workers suffered or, even, because the company itself could not find a more suitable place to make the growth leap due to the increase in prices. The study presented this Wednesday by the SME Observatory of the Catalan employers' association of small and medium-sized enterprises, Pimec, is a new demonstration of the extent to which the housing crisis is harming not only citizens, especially young people and those with more precarious salaries, but it is also a general problem that clearly and worryingly hinders the entire country's economy and prevents it from advancing at the desired pace.