Youth unemployment falls 12% in the year, to historical lows, and permanent hiring triples, to 38 out of every 100 contracts

MADRID, 3 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Registered unemployment in the offices of the public employment services recorded a decrease of 268,252 people (-8.6%) in 2022, to a total of 2,837,635 unemployed, the lowest figure at the end of the year since 2007, The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy reported this Tuesday, which stressed that these data have been obtained "in an international context that continues to be marked by uncertainty."

With the decrease registered in 2022, unemployment chains two consecutive years of setbacks after the one recorded in 2021, when there was a record drop of 782,232 unemployed due to the end of the restrictions associated with the pandemic.

Within the comparable historical series, which began in 1996, the drop in unemployment in 2022 represents the second best annual data since 2017, only surpassed by the aforementioned 2021. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, unemployment shot up by 724,532 people, while in 2019 and 2018 it was reduced by just over 38,000 and 210,000 people, respectively.

The 2.83 million unemployed with whom 2022 closed has been reached after unemployment fell in December by 43,727 people compared to the previous month (-1.5%), its second best data in a month of December since 2018, only surpassed by that of 2021, when it fell by almost 77,000 people. With this monthly decrease, three consecutive months of falls accumulate.

In seasonally adjusted terms, unemployment fell by 24,138 people in December compared to November.

Unemployment decreased last year in all economic sectors, especially in services, which left 171,212 unemployed in the year (-7.8%). Agriculture followed, with 32,278 fewer unemployed (-22.1%), and construction, which registered a decrease of 30,829 unemployed (-11.9%).

Industry and the group without previous employment, for their part, cut their number of unemployed by 24,562 and 9,371 people in 2022, with percentage drops compared to 2020 of 9.5% and 3.7%, respectively.

Unemployment fell in 2022 in both sexes and did so almost equally. Thus, female unemployment fell by 133,884 women compared to 2021 (-7.3%), compared to an annual decline in male unemployment of 134,368 unemployed (-10.5%). Thus, at the end of the year, the number of unemployed women stood at 1,690,148, its lowest figure in 14 years, and that of men, at 1,147,505 unemployed.

By age, unemployment among young people under 25 years of age decreased by 12% in 2022, with 26,843 fewer unemployed than in 2021, reaching a record low of 195,751 unemployed. For its part, the unemployment of people aged 25 and over fell in 2022 by 241,409 unemployed (-8.4%), to a total of 2,641,902 unemployed.

Unemployment fell in 2022 in all the autonomous communities, especially in Madrid (-67,918 unemployed), Andalusia (-58,544), the Valencian Community (-33,241), Catalonia (-22,820) and the Balearic Islands (-20,123). Unemployment only rose in 2022 in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, with 4 and 753 more unemployed than in 2021.

In relative values, the greatest decline in unemployment was in the Balearic Islands (-35.9%), followed by Madrid (-18.5%) and Extremadura, where unemployment fell by 10.5% last year, with 9,669 unemployed less. These three communities were the only ones that registered double-digit unemployment declines in 2022.

For its part, the smallest annual decreases in unemployment in absolute terms occurred in Navarra, with 416 fewer unemployed than in 2021, and in La Rioja, which subtracted 742 unemployed in the year.

According to Labor data, registered unemployment among foreigners decreased in 2022 by 36,933 unemployed (-9.3%) compared to 2021, until the total number of unemployed immigrants stood at 359,469, which means 3,756 fewer unemployed than there had been. in November (-1%).

As for hiring, in 2022 18,310,343 contracts were made, 5.5% less than in 2021 and 18.7% below the 2019 figure, in the absence of a pandemic. Labor has highlighted that this setback in hiring "is one of the expected effects, in terms of stability" after the implementation of the labor reform a year ago now.

Of the total contracts registered in 2022, just over 7 million contracts, equivalent to 38.4% of the total, were permanent, with a growth of 232.5% over the previous year.

Among the permanent contracts made in the whole of the past year, 2,966,106 were full-time, 129.4% more than in 2021, and 1,184,020 part-time, triple that of a year earlier (212.4% ).

Of all the contracts signed in 2022, almost 11.3 million were temporary contracts, 34.6% less than in 2021.

The Ministry headed by Yolanda Díaz has highlighted that in 2022 nearly five million more permanent contracts were signed and nine million fewer temporary contracts than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. Of these, she emphasizes, the contract that has increased the most has been the ordinary full-time permanent contract, with 1.7 million more.

Considering only the contracts made in the month of December, the employment offices recorded 1,189,917 contracts, 29.2% less than in the same month of 2021. Of all of them, 464,152 were permanent contracts, a figure that is more than double (167.1%) to that of December 2021.

In total, 39% of the contracts carried out in December were permanent, a percentage that has fallen four points compared to the previous month, when the proportion of permanent contracts was 43.2%. Temporary contracts, for their part, represented 61%, with 782,002 contracts, 51.8% less than in December 2021.

Of the total number of permanent contracts signed in the last month of the year, 178,983 were full-time, 62.8% more than in December 2021; 177,877 were permanent-intermittent contracts, multiplying by more than ten the figure for December 2021 (964%), and 107,292 were permanent part-time contracts, more than double that of a year earlier (127.6%).

Labor has also reported that spending on unemployment benefits stood at 1,743.4 million euros in November (latest data available), 5.8% less than in the same month of 2021.

At the end of November, the total number of beneficiaries of unemployment benefits reached the figure of 1,799,838 unemployed, 1.2% less than in the same month of 2021.

The average monthly expense per beneficiary, without including the agricultural subsidy in Andalusia and Extremadura, was 991.2 euros, 5% less in the interannual rate.

The coverage rate of the unemployment protection system stood at 66.3% in November, compared to 60.63% in the same month of 2021.