Unemployment rate drops to lowest level in 15 years to reach 8.44%

Unemployment in Catalonia dropped for the second quarter of the year and is at its lowest level in 15 years, according to the latest labor force survey (EPA) published on Thursday by the Spanish Statistics Institute.

The jobless rate stands at 8.44%, almost 2 percentage points less than the previous quarter of the year, when the unemployment rate stood at 10.37%.

In total, there are 3.65 million employed people and 336,800 out of work in Catalonia, a level not seen since 2008.  That is 70,400 fewer people unemployed compared to the first quarter of 2023, a decrease of 17,3%. 

More than 132,000 people have been employed during these three months while also breaking the record of employment with 3.65 million employed people. 

Such a decrease in unemployment during this period can be attributed to the decrease in women's unemployment rate, which has dropped to 8.32%. 

"These are record-high, historic, and very positive figures that demonstrate [the economy's] dynamism," business minister Roger Torrent commented. 

Two ways of calculating unemployment

These figures slightly differ from those from the latest data published by the labor ministry. 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 surveying a broad sample of 65,000 households - or some 200,000 individuals - all over Spain, while the labor ministry figures are based on the number of jobseekers registered with the Employment Service. 

According to the last unemployment rate by the ministry, showing figures for the month of June 2023, there were 329,744 people without work in Catalonia, a decrease of 1.89%.