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The Spanish economy has managed to get through another working year, fortunately bringing 501,952 new workers into the system. It has been a year strongly influenced by the boom in tourism and all the activities linked to the services sector, which are really driving the country as a whole. The growth in all businesses that depend on tourism, from hotels to restaurants, including recreational activities and transport among many others, has meant that Spain has more than 21.3 million people signed up as actively working and paying into the social security system at the close of 2024, the highest average figure since records began.
While all this growth in employment is good, most of it still depends on the services sector as the one providing the most jobs and being the fastest growing. So, once again the country's economic growth is very dependent on the magic wand of tourism continuing to wave. For now it shows no signs of slowing down, or even stopping, thanks to the more than 90 million visitors that came to Spain in the last 12 months. Of the half a million new jobs created in 2024, almost 450,000 came from all tertiary activity (including the services sector), barely 40,000 were from industry, some 30,000 from construction and agriculture remained practically at no change whatsoever.
The increase in jobs registered in 2024 lost some momentum compared to the previous year's data when some 540,000 jobs were generated as the economy overcame the pandemic crisis and the consequences of the war in Ukraine. The figure for the year that has just ended was boosted by the performance of the labour market in December, with 35,500 more people registering with social security compared with 29,000 in the same month last year. The last month of the year is usually a good time for hiring due to the Christmas campaigns in retail and the usual hive of activity in commerce around the festive season. In fact, in a month-on-month comparison by trade sector, the category for all artistic, recreational and entertainment activities (+1.2%) and trade (+1.1%) stand out. The figure falls a little for the sectors of hotels and restaurants (-1.9%) and construction (-1.07%).
In the case of the self-employed, the number of self-employed workers has reached almost 3.4 million, 42,396 newbies in the last year thanks to the pull of the high value-added sectors, according to the central government's Ministry of Social Security. This is the highest level ever for the month of December. In year-on-year comparisons, 47,608 more workers have been registered in Spain's RETA self-employed register alone, not counting the self-employed in agriculture, and the figure exceeds 3.22 million, the highest on record since 2008.
At the end of December 2024 registered unemployment numbers in SEPE's offices (Spain's state employment service, similar to job centres) fell by 25,300 persons (-0.98%) compared with the previous month. The total of those registered as unemployed thus stood at 2,560,718, the lowest figure since December 2007. The interannual decrease is 146,738 persons (-5.42%). By economic sector for November unemployment fell in the services sector by 21,408 persons (-1.15%), among the unemployed by 7,144 persons (-2.94%) and in agriculture by 2,019 persons (-2.36%).
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