Out-of-work seasonal “fixed discontinuous” workers – not listed as unemployed – up 20% to almost 750,000

Employment November

Registered unemployment fell by 27,375 in December to a total of 2.7 million, the lowest figure since 2007. But the question on many people’s minds is: what would have happened if this figure had not excluded the out-of-work seasonal “fixed discontinuous” workers who register with a public employment service? They are not classified as unemployed, but as job seekers with an employment relationship, a category that in the last month of 2023 increased by 45,576 people to reach 746,077, the highest figure since the labour reform, according to the newspaper El Economista. A contrast of data that resurrects the suspicions of statistical ‘make-up’ that the Ministry of Labour has been promising for more than a year to clear up the matter without ever doing so.

Thus, in a region such as the Balearic Islands, where the tourism sector relies more on permanent than temporary workers, there are more people collecting unemployment benefits than unemployed. A factor that contributes to fuelling doubts further.


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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.