Record-breaking rise in employment in Malaga: 50,000 jobs created in last quarter

It is often said that Spain's Labour Force Survey is just a snapshot of the job market, but a whole series of snapshots can tell a story. So, in the second quarter of 2024 Malaga has been exceptionally favoured with a great snapshot. This spring has seen a record-breaking surge in employment in the province: never before have 50,000 jobs been created in a single quarter. Specifically, the country's National Institute of Statistics (INE) has highlighted an increase of 50,400 people in jobs compared to the start of the year, bringing employment to an all-time high: 772,000 people in work.

At the national level only the Balearic Islands are ahead of Malaga in terms of employment growth, with almost 89,000 more people in jobs. Within mainland Spain Malaga is the absolute leader and has generated more jobs in the second quarter than Madrid and Barcelona combined. Within the Andalucía region Malaga province accounts for half of all recruitment (101,200).

It is clear that this dash for jobs is happening in the context of the start of the peak season for tourism and, granted, a large part of this growth is due to hiring in hotels, restaurants and other tourist services, but this is not the only branch of the economy that has contributed to these record-breaking figures. Construction has increased employment by almost 17,000 people in the second quarter and within the services industries, which contributed 31,000 more employees, there are many other sectors besides tourism that have seen more people employed such as technology, commerce and public services. On the other hand, heavy industry and agriculture have hardly changed their number of workers this spring.

There is yet another argument for not considering this strong rise in employment to be exclusively cyclical. If we compare the number of people employed with the same period last year in Malaga (when the tourist season was also getting underway), there is an increase of almost 47,000. Therefore, amid these swings and roundabouts that come around annually, 2024 is seeing greater growth than previous years. Construction has taken on a greater proportion than the same time last year. In fact, it surpasses the services industry sectors as the sector that has added the most workers in the last twelve months: almost 24,000 employed, compared to 12,800 in services and 9,500 in heavy industry. Agriculture, meanwhile, has remained stagnant.

Unemployment has also experienced an historic drop: the spring EPA (Labour Force Survey) shows 111,000 unemployed in Malaga province, which is almost 35,000 less than in the first quarter. Ever since detailed stats began in 2002 there is only one quarter in which there was a more significant drop in unemployment (the third quarter of 2009).

As a result, Malaga province has the lowest level of unemployment since 2007. This is a significant detail to note because a very important psychological barrier has been crossed: that of 2008. Until now, no matter how many jobs were created, it had not been possible to reduce unemployment below the level of the year in which the last, great economic crisis began. At last that threshold has been crossed.

More significant, however, is the drop in the unemployment rate in Malaga to 12.6%, the lowest level since detailed records began (before 2002 the EPA did not include this indicator by province, only region). It is also important in terms of convergence with the rest of Spain, as the province is only 1.3 points above the national average (11.3%). Malaga is four points below the Andalusian rate, which is 16.3%.

All this is going on with a working population that continues to grow, and not just growing, but actually reaching a new all-time high: the labour market in Malaga has 883,000 people in employment in the latest EPA, almost 20,000 more than a year ago.