Employment among the young in Malaga is growing with migrants leading the way

Just over 277,700 people between the ages of 16 and 29 reside in Malaga province. This is almost 14% more than ten years ago, when there were less than 244,000. Of these, more than 130,600 registered with Social Security at the employment peak over summer, representing an increase of nearly 47% compared to the levels of ten years ago, when there were barely over 89,000 in gainful employment. This means that, if 36.5% of people aged 16 to 29 were working in 2015, by 2025 that number ill be practically half.

This state of affairs is not exclusive to Malaga. It is also true across Spain as a whole. The population number in this age group has increased by almost 15.4%, from 6.6 to 7.6 million young people. Meanwhile, youth employment has increased by 42% in the last ten years, surpassing 3.5 million people. This means that, in Spain as a whole, almost half of those aged between 16 and 29 have a job, 46% to be precise, compared to 37% a decade ago.

Miguel Ángel García, researcher at the independent, economic Spanish think-tank Fedea, ventures a couple of working hypotheses. Firstly, the impact of migration: "All immigration to Spain is for work". In Malaga province, foreigners aged between 15 and 29 (not 16, given that the continuous population survey from the INE (Spain's national statistics institute) starts at 15) have increased by almost 50% in the last decade, rising from nearly 45,166 to over 67,600 today. In contrast, those born in Spain of the same age have barely grown by 7%, from 216,000 to over 230,000. Similarly, across Spain as a whole, the population born in Spain has grown by 6.6%, while the foreign-born population has increased by 58%. So this ingredient, the change in the composition of young people, with greater foreign influx, seems important when analysing how youth employment is progressing.

Marcel Jansen, also a researcher at Fedea, elaborates on this issue: "A large part of job creation relies on migration. This means easy growth, because people who come to Spain are more inclined to work than locals so, although employment is growing, the unemployment rate does not grow to the same extent. But Malaga also has the advantage of attracting a lot of skilled employment and is a focus for teleworkers and digital nomads, so the number of workers is likely to be higher than the statistics reflect, because they don't pay into Spain's Social Security system, but rather to their home countries."

The second hypothesis put forward by García is the ageing of the population, which has led to a process of replacing older workers with younger ones. It is true that Social Security affiliation among young people has grown more than the total, which has only increased by 38.5%, but the data shows that the growth in employment among young people has not diminished that of older workers. In Malaga, as of August this year, there were more than 152,000 contributors aged over 55, practically double the number from ten years ago, when they barely exceeded 77,300. Thus, youth employment in Malaga is growing without crowding out older workers, resulting in an ever-increasing employment pool. In summary, the labour market is capable of providing more work than simply replacing those who retire and who, as García points out, number more than 600,000 in Spain as a whole each year.

María Jesús Fernández, senior economist at financial think-tank Funcas, explains that this is due to the sharp decline in unemployment that has occurred during this long period of expansion in the Spanish economy after the major recession that began in 2008. The economy, following that prolonged economic crisis that bottomed out in 2013, has experienced a long recovery that was only interrupted by Covid-19. Such has been the boom, explains Fernández, that the labour market has not only been able to absorb the unemployment generated by the previous period of difficulties, but has also managed to employ the new population, which is largely migrant. Thus, as Fernández continues, while the youth unemployment rate reached 55%, it has now moderated to a still-high 25%. Meanwhile, the rate for the general population has gone from a peak of 26% to 10%.

In turn, Alberto Montero, professor of Economics at the University of Malaga (UMA), offers more qualitative reasons for this positive trend in youth employment: "There is a faster labour market integration among resident workers in this age group." He attributes this to the "change in study patterns towards the completion of vocational training modules as opposed to dropping out, which reduces job prospects, or toward completing degrees, which lengthens their labour market integration". Thus, the positive performance of the labour market over the last ten years may have been complemented by a better fit between the training of young people and the demands of companies. Despite this, employers are detecting a shortage of trained profiles in both the hospitality and construction industry sectors. However, summer is when employment peaks among young people.

The talk about employment for the under-29s is a very global topic. Working at 16 is not the same as working after the age of 25. It is therefore interesting to analyse how the number of Social Security contributors has evolved within the overall age group. Among those aged 16 to 19, the number of contributors in Malaga has tripled, from 4,700 to over 14,200. Meanwhile, those aged between 20 and 24 have increased by 73%, from almost 29,500 to almost 51,000. Lastly, those aged 25-29 now number nearly 65,500, up 20% from 55,000 ten years ago.