Unemployment rate in Catalonia drops below 10% for the first time since 2008

The unemployment rate in Catalonia in the second quarter of 2022 dropped below 10% for the first time since 2008.

At 9.29%, almost an entire percentage point lower than a year earlier, there are 360,500 people out of work and a 14-year high of over 3.5 million employed workers.

According to National Statistics Institute (INE) figures published on Thursday, last quarter there were 8.55% more unemployed people, while a year prior there were almost 25% more with an additional 118,000 jobseekers.

The number of temporary workers has also declined in the second quarter thanks to Spain's new labor market regulations: a fifth of all workers were on temporary contracts in April, while only 17.8% were in June.

Meanwhile, unemployment across Spain dropped to 12.48% over the same period, with 383,300 more employed workers than in the first quarter of the year.

Catalonia is the part of Spain that has reduced the number of unemployed workers the most in a year, ahead of Andalusia. And after the Balearic Islands, it has created the highest number of jobs since the first quarter of 2022.

Annually, however, Catalonia is below the Spanish average when it comes to creating jobs (+0.77%).