Malaga province bucks nationwide trend of rising unemployment in August

It is also true that in places such as Malaga, the seasonal nature of tourism and the service sector is becoming less pronounced. Year after year, we see the season extending over an increasing number of months, with the resulting benefits in terms of employment.

Figures the Ministry of Labour published on Wednesday show that unemployment in Malaga fell by 409 people in August, to 97,095, representing a drop of 0.42%.

Malaga was therefore not only the sole province in Andalucía where unemployment fell in August, but also one of only three provinces in the country where the number of unemployed fell, alongside Ceuta (-148 unemployed) and Las Palmas (-94).

Unemployment rose in the remaining provinces, particularly in Barcelona (10,743), Madrid (6,881) and Valencia (3,080).

In Andalucía, the province where unemployment rose the most in absolute terms was Seville (1,457 or 1.11%, bringing the total to 132,842), while in relative terms, the largest increase was in Jaén (1.3% or 393 more people unemployed, bringing the total to 30,673).

Across Andalucía as a whole, unemployment rose by 3,394 people in August, or 0.64%, to 530,256. The figures were even worse for Spain as a whole, where August saw an increase of 44,419 unemployed people, representing a rise of 1.92%, bringing the total to 2.355 million.

Compared with the figures from a year ago, however, unemployment has fallen by almost 70,593 people (2.91%) across the country. However, the figures for Malaga are much better: there are now 11,634 fewer unemployed people than 12 months ago, representing a fall of 10.7%.

In the province, by sector, unemployment rose only in construction, where the number of unemployed increased by 177 during the month, reaching 9,871. However, the services sector accounts for the largest number of unemployed (70,568, 212 fewer than in July), compared with manufacturing (4,186, nine fewer) and agriculture (2,050, 89 fewer).

While unemployment fell in Malaga in August, the trend in Social Security registrations showed little sign of the end of summer. The province lost 294 jobs in August compared with July's figure, bringing the total to 789,701, which means that employment remains very close to historic highs.

This decline in absolute terms represents a 0.03% fall in employment. Year-on-year, the province has gained 32,457 Social Security contributors, an increase of 4.29%.

In Andalucía, there are only two provinces where employment rose in August: Cadiz (up 0.08% or 348 people to 461,278) and Jaén (up 0.12% or 294 to 240,224). Across the region as a whole, the figure fell by almost 12,000 contributors (0.33%) to 3.587 million.

Over the last 12 months, Andalucía has seen an increase of 11,619 people in employment, representing 3.21%. While no Andalusian province has surpassed Malaga in terms of job creation in absolute terms (not even Seville, which lags behind by 10,000 jobs), there is one that has outperformed it in relative terms: Almeria, with growth of 4.54%.

Spain as a whole does indeed fit the pattern that August is a poor month for employment, with a loss of 162,840 Social Security contributors, representing a fall of 0.72% to 22.345 million contributors. However, over the last 12 months, the country has still gained more than 679,000 contributors, representing employment growth of 3.13%.

There were 42,047 new contracts in August, down 31.63% compared with the previous month, but up 4.05% compared with the same period in 2025. Of these, 18,821 were permanent contracts, 7.29% more than a year earlier. Meanwhile, 23,236 were fixed-term contracts, 1.56% more than in August 2025.

So far this year, 401,329 employment contracts have been signed in the province, 46.34% of them permanent and 53.66% temporary.

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