Summer brings more jobs to Spain’s recovering economy

Fully booked hotels throughout the country certainly help boost Spain’s job figures

It happens every year but every year it is worth reporting – the month of June saw Spain add 100,000 new jobs, lowering unemployment for the 11^th consecutive month.

If onlookers were in need of reassurances that Spain’s economic recovery has now eased into the fast lane, then this is surely it. Official figures released this week by Spain’s Labour Ministry show that the number of people registered as unemployed in June fell by 122,684 – bringing the national unemployed figure down to 4.45 million…

Summer is traditionally a good time for Spain’s unemployment figures as seasonal jobs help assuage the numbers. However, Spanish daily El Pais has analysed the figures and, accounting for the seasonal blip, estimate that unemployment actually fell by 16,113. A smaller figure, but still a positive step in the right direction.

“It is the longest declining trend recorded since 1999,” said Engracia Hidalgo, Spain’s State Secretary for Employment. Following the country’s emergence from a double-dip recession in mid-2013, Spain’s jobless figures have been slowly and steadily improving, boosted largely by a stronger-than-ever tourism sector, a surging manufacturing and export industry, and a flood of confidence that has rushed back into Spain’s property market.

Few sectors are performing as strongly as Spain’s manufacturing industry. In June, the country’s Markit PMI (a rather complicated algorithm that assesses a nation’s manufacturing performance) was 54.6 – any reading above 50 denotes expansion.

Hence, Spain’s manufacturing sector outperformed that of Germany, France and Italy last month, steered mostly by car manufacturing boosted by the government’s car scrappage scheme, which was successfully bolstered earlier this month.

“If we look at the similarly impressive readings for the Spanish services and tourism sector, we can safely conclude that Spain is reaping the rewards of its tough labour market reforms of 2012 and is becoming a mainstay of Eurozone growth,” said Senior Economist for Berenberg Bank, Chritian Schulz.

However, the tangible effects of this recovery have yet to reach many of Spain’s youngsters, with the National Statistics Institute reporting last week that emigration is still high. Last year, more than half a million Spaniards left the country. And while the majority of that figure were immigrants returning home or moving on, there were still 79,306 Spaniards fleeing their home country in 2013.

Furthermore, the Institute estimates that the proportion of Spain’s population aged between 15-39 has decreased by 477,851 people in the past 18 months.