Unemployment in Catalonia drops to 322,072 after best September in years

Unemployment in Catalonia dropped to 322,072 people after recording the best September in years, in terms of job creation.

During the last month, there were 5,293 fewer jobseekers, according to data from Spain’s labor ministry released on Thursday morning.

This is the best figure since September 2007, and represents 2.9% fewer jobseekers (9,858) than September 2024. It is also the third consecutive September with a drop in the number of jobseekers.

Compared to August, there were 14,869 more workers last month, reaching 3,863,651 employees, and 2.02% more than in September last year, according to the Spanish social security ministry.

In this case, it is the best figure for workers for a month of September since 2012, when the first data started to be collected.

Barcelona was the only Catalan territory where the number of workers increased, by 41,018. Meanwhile, in Girona, there were 14,357 more jobseekers, Lleida registered 5,169 fewer workers, and Tarragona saw 6,622 fewer workers compared to the previous month.

Across Spain, Catalonia was second in number of jobs created in September, just behind the Madrid region's 45,905. Catalonia has the highest number of workers with 3,863,651, followed by Madrid’s 3,779,782, although it is lower than the all-time high recorded in July when there were 3,912,345 workers.

In Spain, there were 21,697,665 listed in the Social Security registries, around 0.15% more than in August, and 2.36% more than September last year, which is 499,459 jobs created.