Employment marks new record in July with over 3.9m workers despite unemployment rise

The employment rate marked a new record in Catalonia in July with 3,912,345 people registered on the social security, a slight 0.18% increase on June's figures, and almost 2% more than July 2024, according to data released on Monday by Spain's social security ministry.

Although the employment rate increased, there were more jobseekers. After an increase of 1.38%, there were 4,339 more people looking for a job. The rise breaks a five-month downtrend, which ended with June being the best June since 2008.

Despite the small increase, July was the second-best month of the last 17 years, just behind last June.

Compared to July 2024, Catalonia has 7,860 fewer jobseekers, a 2.4% drop.

Catalonia had the highest number of people registered on Spain's social security lists in July, just before the Comunidad de Madrid's 3,776,154 and Andalusia's 3,492,817.

In July, there were 319,423 jobseekers in Catalonia, the highest increase across Spain, with the Basque Country's more than 1,600 new unemployed and the 1,167 in Aragon. 

Overall, 58% of the new jobseekers were women, a total of 186,585, and 132,838 were men.

In Spain, there were 1,357 fewer unemployed, the smallest figure for a month of July in the last 18 years. In July, 2,404,606 people were looking for a job across Spain.

Ageism

The Catalan labor secretary, Paco Ramos, pointed out to a "kind of ageism" in the list of those registered in the long term unemployment, for those aged under 24 years old and for those aged 45 years and older.

Ramos said that in both cases they see a relation with "low formative level."

Although, despite the ageism, Ramos pointed out that the results of July are "a very good thing" as for the second time the social security surpasses the 3.9 million.