Malaga province's labour market still in good shape: 2025 ends with almost 25,000 jobs created and 9,000 fewer unemployed people
Malaga is the fourth Spanish province with the highest growth in employment, although the challenge of falling below 100,000 unemployed is still pending
Malaga province shows no signs of job creation fatigue, judging by the annual accounts of social security (Seguridad Social) registrations. 2025 ended with a new all-time record for employment in the province: an average of 738,958 people were registered in December, representing an increase of 3.46% (24,713 contributors) compared to the end of 2024. This is the fourth highest increase in relative terms in employment recorded at the national level, behind Melilla, Ceuta and Valencia. In Andalucía, enrolment grew by an average of 2.03% and the national average was 2.37%.
If we compare employment growth in Malaga in 2025 with that of the previous year, it is even slightly higher in absolute terms, as 2024 resulted in 23,000 jobs created.
This positive annual balance has been achieved despite the fact that the last few months of 2025 have seen a fall in enrolment, as tends to happen in Malaga during the low tourist season. November was particularly bad, with more than 7,000 contributors lost. The trend then moderated, but there was still another monthly fall of 3,942 affiliates. These declines did not overshadow the intense pace of job creation that took place during the first eight months of the year.
Unemployment continues to fall
The balance of 2025 in terms of registered unemployment is also positive, although the figures are not as spectacular as those for job creation. Malaga closed December with 109,875 unemployed registered in employment offices, which is 9,199 fewer compared to the end of 2024.
The province is at its lowest level of unemployment since 2008, but the challenge of falling below 100,000 unemployed remains. The downward curve of unemployment has historically been much slower than the upward curve of employment for a number of reasons, including the continuous increase in the active population, but also the existence of a pocket of long-term unemployment that has proved very difficult to reduce, at least with the current policies in place.
Downturn in December
If we focus on the last month of 2025, unemployment in the province fell by 962 people, probably due to the influence of the Christmas campaign on hiring. The downward trend was shared by all Andalusian provinces, with the services sector mainly responsible for this decline.
The profile of the unemployed in the province of Malaga continues to be mainly female (there are 66,131 women compared to 43,744 men) and linked to the service sector: of the nearly 110,000 job seekers, almost 80,000 last worked in this sector. In addition, there are 10,863 unemployed in construction, 4,711 in industry, 2,184 in agriculture and 12,291 who do not specify any previous employment.
