Spain's employment figures hit best September on record thanks to regularisation process, although number of unemployed increases by 23,500

This year is no different, although there has been an improvement in employment figures thanks to the strong momentum of the extraordinary regularisation process, which has led to a record number of new Social Security registrations.

Meanwhile, unemployment has risen at a rate not seen for almost a decade, with 23,500 more people becoming unemployed.

Social Security recorded an increase of 92,327 people in employment compared with August, of whom 84,220 were foreign nationals, accounting for over 90 per cent. Spain has now added 739,888 workers over the past year, of whom four in five (547,637) are immigrants.

Employment is picking up momentum and is once again growing at a rate of over three per cent. It shows no signs of slowing down, with the number of people in employment remaining above 22.43 million and even peaking at over 22.57 million at times during the month.

"There have never been so many people in work in Spain," Minister for Inclusion Elma Saiz said.

September masks the return of more than 60,000 jobs in the education sector after the school holidays. Meanwhile, the retail and hospitality sectors have seen the greatest job losses, with over 58,000 fewer jobs, demonstrating that the Spanish labour market remains highly seasonal.

Unemployment is once again the negative factor, for the third month running. It appears that the labour market is unable to absorb the more than two million unemployed people whose numbers have remained static since May 2022, when the figure fell below the three-million mark.

This September the figure shot up by 23,587 people. We have to go back to 2017 to find such a sharp September rise, driven, in this case, by those who have never been in employment before (people registering for the first time as jobseekers at employment offices). Despite the monthly rise, unemployment fell by 42,160 over the past year and now stands at 2.37 million, the lowest figure for a September since 2007.

The strength of the labour market can be attributed to the extraordinary regularisation process, which brought 421,306 new workers into the system in the end of September, 83,389 more than in the previous month. Of these, the General Scheme covered 77.4 per cent, while 5.4 per cent were self-employed. Furthermore, 60.2 per cent were men and 39.8 per cent were women.

People of Latin American origin are the drivers of this rise, with Colombia (118,485) and Venezuela (71,999) topping the rankings. They account for almost half of all newly employed workers.

The number of foreign workers registered has exceeded 3.6 million for the first time, which has increased their share of the labour market to 16.2 per cent of the total workforce. Around 56,476 foreigners were registered as job seekers last month after going through the regularisation process.

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