Brussels (Brussels Morning) The Spanish labour market continued to recover in the second quarter of the year, with the number of employed increasing by 464,900.
This more than offset the decline experienced between January and March, when the number of employed dropped by 137,500, El País reports.
The annual growth rate of employment, projected on the basis of the second quarter, represents the highest in the last 16 years. The number of employed at the end of the second quarter was more than one million higher compared to mid-2020.
According to official records, the number of employed exceeds 19.6 million, while the number of registered unemployed stands at 3.5 million, up some 176,000 compared to mid-2020.
The number of registered unemployed dropped more than 110,000 in the second quarter of the year, bringing the unemployment rate down to 15.26%.
Employment below 2019 levels
While trends are improving, the number of employed in Spain at the end of the second quarter was approximately 133,000 lower compared to the corresponding period last year.
The unemployment rate, which stood at 14.02% in June 2019, dropped to 13.78% by the end of the year, with roughly 3.32 million registered unemployed. Currently, the number of registered unemployed is about 310,000 higher than at the end of 2019.
Most new jobs of the 464,900 created in the second quarter of the year were in the services sector, followed by civil engineering, agriculture and industry.
Andalusia saw the highest growth of employment in the second quarter (102,400), followed by the Balearic Islands with 60,300 and Valencia with 55,100. Declines in registered unemployment were highest in Murcia (22,200), followed by Catalonia (21,200) and Andalusia (19,800).
The number of remote workers also showed a decline, with 9.4% of those employed working remotely at least half of the time in the second quarter of the year, compared to 12.2% in the previous quarter. The figure stood at 4.8% in 2019 and peaked in the second quarter of 2020 at 16.2%.