Malaga breaks August curse of rising unemployment, but job creation slows

It was the province with the best unemployment performance in Spain last month, with just 499 fewer jobless people

Nuria Triguero

Malaga

Thursday, 5 September 2024, 11:35

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August saw a drop of 499 unemployed people compared to July in Malaga province, new data from the Social Security department shows.

While the figure may seem like a modest decrease, compared with the rest of the country, it makes it the province with the best unemployment performance last month - a month which has been traditionally poor for Spain's labour market due to the end of many summer contracts.

Malaga has broken the curse of August this year, however job creation has also slowed, with social security enrolment falling by 1,464 people compared to July, the figures show.

Malaga closes the high season with 116,343 unemployed and 733,729 workers registered with social security (including 136,874 self-employed professionals). These are, respectively, the lowest unemployment figures since 2008 and the highest number of registered workers in history for the month of August. Compared with a year ago, there are 9,218 fewer unemployed (-7.3%) and 25,135 more social security contributors (+3.5%).

But why has unemployment not risen in August if employment has fallen? There may be several reasons for this, such as the fact that some of those who have stopped working have not registered for unemployment benefits (for example, they may not be entitled to benefits). There is also a distorting effect of seasonal fixed-term contracts, since when they end their working contract they are not considered unemployed, as they keep their job for the next season, but they do stop paying social security contributions.

In Andalucía, unemployment rose in August by 1,051 people. Only three provinces escaped the upward trend: Malaga (-499), Almeria (-235) and Huelva (-204). Unemployment increased most in Cordoba and Seville (597 and 594 respectively). Social security enrolment fell by 16,233 people with respect to the previous month, with Seville as the province that lost the most contributors (-5,834), followed by Almería (-3,362), Córdoba (-2,184) and Granada (-2,098). The only province that escaped the drop was Cadiz, which added 614 people.

By sector and gender

The sectors most affected by unemployment in August in Malaga were services (-177), agriculture (-101) and industry (-12), but employment increased in construction (+225). The group without previous employment decreased by 434 unemployed.

By sex, there are 45,957 men and 70,385 women actively seeking employment in Malaga, according to the SEPE register. In the past twelve months, the fall in unemployment has been more concentrated among women, with a reduction of 5,677 unemployed women compared to 3,541 unemployed men.

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