Malaga has nearly 790,000 people in work and bucks the national trend of rising unemployment

The performance of the labour market in Malaga stands in contrast to that of Andalucía as a whole, where 6,948 jobs were lost last month, mainly due to a drop of more than 19,000 registered workers in Huelva, 5,676 in Almería, a fall of 4,215 in Seville and a decline of nearly 900 in Cordoba.

The figures for Malaga and Cadiz – which are even more impressive, with over 11,000 more people registered for social security – have not been enough to offset this decline and enable the region to report better figures.

Across Spain as a whole, however, the figures are positive, given that over the last month the country has managed to add 41,727 new jobholders, bringing the total to over 22.5 million – also an all-time high. In any case, this translates into a 0.19 per cent rise in employment across the country over the last month – a figure that Malaga has comfortably surpassed.

Malaga therefore continues to see an increase in the number of people paying social security contributions month after month: the 8,710 in July come on top of the nearly 10,000 in May and June, the 15,000 in April and the 14,000 in March. Over the last twelve months, employment in Malaga province has grown by nearly 31,000 people, or just over four per cent, making it the most dynamic province in Andalucía in this particular respect.

Across the region as a whole, the increase of just over 106,000 Social Security contributors over the last year represents a rise of just over three per cent. Across Spain as a whole, the number of people registered with Social Security has risen by 642,000, which in relative terms represents an increase of around three per cent.

Malaga is the fifth province to gain the most contributors last month in absolute terms, after the Balearic Islands, Girona, Cadiz and Alicante. It also occupies the same position when analysing the growth in the number of people registered for social security over the last twelve months, although in this case it comes after Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante.

In relative terms, as a percentage, over the last year, with a four per cent rise in the number of people in employment, Malaga is the second province in Spain to have created the most jobs, behind only Alicante (4.41 per cent).

As is usually the case in the province, the rise in employment overshadows the accompanying unemployment figures: in terms of registered unemployment, the figure in Malaga fell by 1,580 last month to 97,504, making it the third province in Spain where the number of people registered with the SEPE (State Public Employment Service), behind two other Andalusian provinces, Cadiz (-3,479 unemployed) and Seville (-1,618).

Apart from these, the number of unemployed fell in only ten other Spanish provinces last July, according to data from the Ministry of Labour. Five of these were the remaining Andalusian provinces, which explains why Andalucía was the region that saw the greatest reduction in unemployment, with 9,661 fewer unemployed, bringing the total down to 526,862. Unemployment also fell in Cantabria, Ávila and Badajoz, as well as in Ceuta and Melilla. Unemployment rose in the remaining 39 provinces, particularly in Barcelona (5,941), Valencia (4,509) and Madrid (3,822).

In relative terms, the fall in unemployment in Malaga stood at 1.59 per cent last month, enough to offset the rise recorded across Spain as a whole, where it increased by 0.85 per cent – or by more than 19,500 people – bringing the total number of unemployed to over 2.31 million. However, other Andalusian provinces managed to deal an even heavier blow to unemployment, such as Cadiz (-3.5%) and Jaen (-2.35%) once again, as well as Andalucía as a whole (-1.80%).

Over the last 12 months, the province has seen a cumulative fall of 11,361 in the number of unemployed, representing a reduction of 10.44 per cent, compared with a 10.83 per cent fall in unemployment across the autonomous community of Andalucía as a whole, although nationally the fall is less than four per cent.

Malaga continues to see a fall in the unemployment rate, having seen the number of unemployed fall below 100,000 in June for the first time since the economic crisis began in 2008, and has now recorded five consecutive months of falling unemployment. But one trend remains constant: of the 97,504 unemployed people recorded at the end of July, more than 58,600 are women, compared with around 38,700 men.

In terms of sectors, the majority of the unemployed in Malaga are in the service sector (70,780), compared with 9,694 in construction, 4,195 in industry and 2,139 in agriculture. The remainder, around 10,700, are people who were not previously in employment. That is the snapshot. The dynamic picture – showing how the figures have changed over the last month – reveals that the only sector in which the number of unemployed rose was construction, with 116 more unemployed; while in services the figure fell by 1,235; in industry, by 83; and in agriculture, by 38. Meanwhile, the number of people who were previously unemployed fell by 340.

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