Malaga province has 120,000 unemployed but there are still industries unable to find workers

In two years, Malaga has created more than 52,000 jobs and broken records with 729,000 people affiliated to the Social Security system in June. This job creation started after the pandemic, with Malaga province leading the country in employment growth since 2020. However, despite this unemployment has only fallen by just over 17,000 people.

At the end of last month there were still almost 120,000 people registered as job seekers with the Andalusian Employment Service (SAE), latest data shows. It is clear that a large part of the jobs being generated in Malaga is being taken up by workers from other provinces or other countries.

It is not just that unemployment is not falling at the same rate as employment is growing. In the past two years, alarm bells have been ringing in several sectors due to the difficulty in finding workers in Malaga. In the hospitality and catering sector, for example, there was talk at the start of the season of 5,000 unfilled vacancies. The construction employers' association also estimates it could employ 10,000 more workers than it currently has. The technology and agri-food sectors also generate more vacancies than they can fill.

What is wrong with the labour market in Malaga that there is such a large pool of unemployment while so many job opportunities are being created? There are two opposing - but equally simplistic - arguments that often come to the fore: one is that the unemployed prefer to continue receiving benefits rather than work. The other is low wages, particularly in the hospitality and catering industry, where low wages have always been criticised.

The imbalance or mismatch between supply and demand is called the labour gap, and Spain has the largest gap in Europe: 20%, according to the Junta's employment delegate, Carmen Sánchez.

César Martín, head of the information management and processing service of the SAE, said: "Malaga has a very high level of unemployment and there is a risk of it becoming entrenched. The reasons why people do not get out of unemployment can be very diverse, but it is true that in our country and in other advanced economies what is known as structural unemployment is growing". "These are unemployed people who come from the disappearance or reconversion of sectors; people of advanced age and low qualification level who are left behind. For example, in Malaga, when the construction crisis broke out in 2008, there were tens of thousands of workers in this sector who became unemployed and we have not been able to retrain many of them," he added. Martín also said labour slack is increasing due to the digitalisation of the economy.

Of the almost 120,000 unemployed in Malaga, more than half are over 45 and a third are over 50, according to data provided by the occupations observatory of the State Public Employment Service. "It is not true that companies do not hire older people, but age is a limit in two ways: it is a barrier to adapting to change and, furthermore, a company may consider that the investment needed to train a person is not going to be profitable if they are over a certain age," the SAE director pointed out. But there is an undeniable reality: a large proportion of the unemployed over 50 are not looking for work, but are waiting to retire while they are receiving benefits.

There is another age bracket, the under 25s, where there are about 8,000 unemployed: it is not such a high number but it is one of the most worrying for the SEPE and the SAE, as it points to a problem of lack of qualifications and school dropouts which they tackle with programmes such as the Second Chance Schools or the Employment and Training Programmes.

Lack of qualifications is, in fact, the crux of the matter. Half of the almost 120,000 unemployed in Malaga do not have the ESO qualification, which is the minimum required for 90% of job offers. Meanwhile, barely 20,000 unemployed people have a vocational training or university degree.

The construction sector, for example, still has 12,000 registered unemployed in Malaga, while there are works at a standstill due to a lack of workers. "The sector has evolved very quickly and there are people who are no longer qualified," Martín pointed out. This is in addition to the growing physical demands of the trades linked to bricks and mortar and the lack of interest among young people.

And the hospitality and catering industry? There are some 9,000 unemployed Malaga workers registered with the SAE whose main occupation is that of waiter. "But it's one thing to register as a waiter and another if your vocation really is that of a waiter. There are those who registered years ago and have changed profession or have stopped actively looking for work, but they are still on the register," pointed out Martín, who said that as companies in the hotel and catering sector do not go to the SAE to look for workers, it is difficult to know the reasons why they cannot find them. The employers themselves believe the high cost of housing is an obstacle to workers coming from other provinces, as was traditionally the case in this sector, Martín added.