The Social Security estimates that April will close with 36,000 more members and has already exceeded 20 million contributors so far this month, with a total of 20,057,588 members as of Thursday, 21 April. This is according to data presented by the Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, at a press conference this morning.
Escrivá described the data as “very positive”, taking into account “the significant inflationary context”, as well as the end of benefits for self-employed and the end of the Employment Regulation Files (ERTE) Covid.
The Ministry estimates that 160,000 new jobs will have been created in the first four months of 2022. Social Security enrolment is also up by 500,000 compared to the start of the pandemic. The increase in enrolment so far in April has also contributed to exceeding 20 million members for the first time in the historical series, with a total of 20,057,588 contributors as of Thursday, according to the data presented by Escrivá.
The Ministry relates the April data to the full operation of the labour reform, since the end of March saw the end of the three-month “vacatio legis” granted for the application of some points of the regulation. Escrivá pointed out that this is reflected in the composition of the contracts, with 77% of them of an indefinite nature, 6 points more than the average recorded in April 2015 to 2021. The contracts signed in April so far are divided into 73% permanent, 4% permanent discontinuous, which add up to that 77% of indefinite contracts, and 23% temporary contracts. In April, 607,000 more permanent contracts were signed than in previous years, and 207,000 more permanent contracts were signed than in the past. “The positive effects, with this month of April, will not only be confirmed but will become much stronger”, stressed Escrivá.
By autonomous communities, all are already above the level of employment prior to the pandemic, although Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencia and Murcia are above average and job creation is more than 4% higher than the levels of February 2020.
