Catalonia sees best unemployment figures recorded in 16 years

Catalonia has registered the best unemployment figures in the last 16 years, according to the latest Labor Force Survey (EPA) regarding data from 2024, released on Tuesday by Spain's statistics institute.

Compared to 2023, there were 54,000 fewer jobseekers, with the unemployment rate at 7.87%, the lowest figure recorded in the last 16 years. The last time such number was below the 8% threshold was during the second quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, the labor market also reached a new record for a fourth quarter of the year, with 3,855,900 workers. Comparing 2024 and 2023, 55,200 job opportunities were created across the territory during the last year.

During the last quarter of 2024, fewer new job opportunities were created, with a slight decrease of 5,200, representing -0.13%. However, more people were employed, with 44,600 new workers between October and December, coinciding with Christmas.

Spain has 21.86 million workers

Spain ended 2024 with 21.86 million workers, with 468,100 new jobs created, 2.19% more than the previous year.

During the last year, the country's unemployment rate decreased to 10.6% after a reduction of 265,300 people. This is also the lowest figure recorded since the second quarter of 2008.

Two ways of calculating unemployment

Catalonia and Spain have two ways of calculating employment and unemployment figures. 

These figures come from the latest Labor Force Survey, which is published every three months. The labor ministry publishes monthly figures calculating the number of social security registrations.

The variation in the figures can be attributed to the different methods for gathering data.

The EPA figures published in this article are taken from a broad sample of surveys in Spain. The labor ministry figures are based on the number of job seekers registered with the Employment Service.