Malaga province to break curse of 100,000 unemployed this summer

How will unemployment rates change over the next two years? It seems that Malaga province doesn't need a crystal ball to know: an artificial intelligence (AI) model can predict the future behaviour of the labour market, although it doesn't account for unforeseen events.

According to projections of the state public employment service (Sepe), which use the NeuralPropher AI model, Malaga will finally break the 'curse' of the 100,000 unemployed this summer.

The province has been stuck above the 100,000 mark since 2008 (the year of the Great Recession). Despite being one of the provinces that has created the most jobs in all of Spain in the last five years, it has not yet managed to get below 100,000, but this is about to change.

The province ended May with 102,207 unemployed, already close to that threshold. According to the Sepe's projections, it will have crossed it by July, when the number should be close to 90,000.

"The downward trend is expected to continue with the same seasonal pattern as in Spain as a whole. In Malaga, the month that marks the peak in unemployment is January and the lowest month is July. The reduction in unemployment between the annual peaks and troughs is around 9,000-10,000 unemployed each year," the employment report says.

According to Sepe projections, unemployment will rise again in the winter but will remain below 100,000 people (specifically around 95,000). In the spring of 2027, it will resume its downward trend, reaching 78,000 unemployed in August.

The report expects the lowest point in August 2028, when 73,800 people will be registered as job seekers in the province. In December of that year, when the projection ends, there will be 80,549 people looking for a job, meaning that unemployment will have decreased by 41 per cent compared to December 2022 (136,439).

The Sepe also provides employment projections, which include the people officially registered with Social Security.

"The upward trend is expected to continue, following a seasonal pattern similar to that across Spain. In Malaga, the annual seasonality of registered workers peaks in July and reaches its lowest point in January. Annual increases have been slowing in recent years and are expected to stabilise slightly," the report explains.

By December 2028, the number of contributors in the province will have increased to 927,874: 39.6 per cent more than in December 2022, excluding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This growth is four times greater than the projected growth for Spain as a whole, which is 9.6 per cent.

Malaga reached its all-time high for unemployment in 2014, with 210,000 people: more than double the current figure. Then began a slow downward trend that has brought it to today, when it's about to break the 100,000 unemployment mark.

Some might say: if we have the same number of unemployed as in 2008, it means the Malaga labour market hasn't changed at all since then. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many things have changed, although it's also true that Malaga has been grappling with certain structural problems ever since.

The first major difference is that in 2008 Malaga had nearly 110,000 unemployed people with a much smaller population. In other words, its unemployment rate was higher then. This is a consequence of the second major difference: Malaga is the Spanish province that has created the most jobs in the last two decades. It now has almost 50 per cent more workers.

The major problem that Malaga is facing, despite the undeniable dynamism of its economy and labour market, is the persistence of a deep-seated pool of unemployment, made up of people who have been out of work for a long time and who, in many cases, lack sufficient employability to reintegrate into the labour market.

Six out of ten unemployed (that is, almost 62,000 out of 102,000) are over 45 years of age. A significant number of them are over 52 and receive subsidies. In reality, they are not looking for work but rather waiting to retire.

In fact, some labour sources believe that, although unemployment will continue to gradually decrease, Malaga will not approach a level of 'zero unemployment' until that entrenched pool of unemployment is diluted, either by the retirement of older unemployed people or because authorities finally implement effective retraining policies.