Miguel Navascués | The winner of the recent elections, Pedro Sánchez, defined his objective in the previous debates with great precision: to end the increasing inequality in Spain. But inequality is not the main problem in Spain, it does not even have the nature of a problem. To begin, it is not increasing.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | Chairman of the Círculo de Empresarios (Business Round Table in Spain ), John de Zulueta is an experienced member of the Board of Directors of various international firms. From his managerial post as President of the Sanitas Group (BUPA Group), he turned the company into the leader of its market. He is also Vice-President of the Innovation Bankinter Foundation and was member of the Advisory Council of 3i Europe. He spoke to us about how to fix Spain’s labour market (unemployment rate is 14.7%, according to April 25th data), where there are currently “135,000 technological jobs vacant which cannot find the people to fill them.”
Fernando G. Urbaneja | John De Zulueta, President of the Circle of Businessmen, believes that Spanish society should aspire to reduce unemployment to 5%, and argues that this would liberate more than €26 billion for savings and investment, public or private, in short for a greater prosperity.
According to the National Institute of Statistics, the unemployment rate at the end of 2018 was 14.45%, 2.1 percentage points less than in 2017 and its lowest level for 10 years. For its part, employment grew by 566,200 people in 2018, almost 3% more than 2017, securing its fifth consecutive annual increase and the largest increase since 2006, when 686,200 jobs were created in Spain.
According to the estimates of BBVA Research, social security enrollment increased 0.8% in second quarter , and unemployment reduced 1.6%.
The number of jobless people registered in the public employment services’ offices fell by 83,738 in May compared to the previous month (-2.5%). The total number of unemployed stood at 3.25 million end-May.
The number of Spanish unemployment fell by 47,697 in March in comparison with the previous month, according to figures from the Labour ministry. Figures of registered unemployed totaled 3.42 million, which was the lowest level of the last nine years.
A report from the European Commission published on Monday said that Spanish households’ gross available income was still below 2008 levels up to the first half of last year, in comparison with other EU countries’.
Spain ended 2017 with 611.146 more people in a job, a notable improvement on the results of the previous four years. The number of people signed on with the Social Security rose 3.4% to 18.460.201 from a year earlier.
Bankinter |The variation in the number of jobless in September (according to the Social Security register) was apparently slightly higher (worse) than forecast: +27.900 vs +21.500 expected vs +22.801 in September 2016. (That said it was slightly better than the 26.087 registered in September 2015).