The negative forecasts came true: January, a traditionally bad month for the labor market, ended with an increase in the number of unemployed people in Spain.
After a year 2021 that was good for employment, in January the data returned to be negative whichever way you look at it:
On the one hand, the number of people registered as job seekers on the lists of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE, in its Spanish acronym) increased by 17,173, bringing the total number of unemployed job seekers to 3,123,078. On the other hand, in January 197,750 jobs were lost and the average number of contributors to Social Security fell to 19,627,161.
Experts attribute this negative development to the traditional end of the Christmas consumer campaign and this year also to the restrictions on economic activity caused by the sixth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. This wave, moreover, has been especially contagious due to the emergence of the Omicron variant.
The actual number of unemployed could be even higher. Currently, the negative effects of unemployment are limited by the protection provided by the Temporary Redundancy Programs (ERTEs), since the more than 105,000 people included in them are not counted as unemployed.
Least bad January in 25 years
Even so, the Spanish Ministry of Employment prefers to see the glass as half full and argues that the rise in the number of unemployed in January 2022 was 0.55%, the least bad figure for employment in the last 25 years.
Compared to December 2021, unemployment rises specially in Services by 33,627 people (1.54%) and in Agriculture by 2,657 people (1.83%). It decreases by 9,386 people (-3.67%) in the group of people without previous employment, in Construction by 7,304 people (-2.83%) and in Industry by 2,421 people (-0.94).
In seasonally adjusted terms, registered unemployment fell by 75,210 people.
n a yearly basis, unemployment has registered a marked decrease, falling by 841,275 people (-21.22%) compared to 12 months earlier.
In January 2022, 238,672 permanent employment contracts were registered, which represents 15% of all contracts.
