Unemployment decreased in Galicia by 3,200 people in 2019, 2.3% less than the previous year. In total, 145,800 people finished last year without a job. It is the sixth consecutive year in which unemployment has decreased in the Galician community, but it is also the year in which it has decreased the least since 2014. In addition, 9,000 jobs were created.
According to data from the Active Population Survey (EPA), in Galicia the drop in unemployment is a smaller point than in the country as a whole (3.4%), and the Galician unemployment rate (11.7%) remains below the Spanish average (13.78%).
In 2019, unemployment only fell among men and grew among womens. As for young people, of the 317,700 between the ages of 16 and 29, 38.4% are employed, and one in ten is unemployed. More than half of the total do not look for work.
So, occupancy rate contracted compared to 2018 (a fall of 0.1%) and also with respect to the third quarter (-2.2%). In this same age group, the percentage of unemployed fell by half a point.
Another of the EPA’s conclusions is the indefinite hiring increase, 1.2% more than in 2018, and of temporality, almost a percentage point more.
The fastest growing sectors of employment from one year to another are construction (+ 11.2%) and the industry (8.1%), while falling in the services, agriculture and fishing sectors.
In the last quarter of the year, unemployment rose by 2,300 people, and 9,700 jobs were lost, which means that Galicia had the third worst behavior in the country.
Unions warn of increasing precariousness. In statements to the SER, the CCOO General Secretary, Ramón Sarmiento, explained that in Galicia the problem in the labor market is “more pronounced”. He assured that “the turnover increases” and that each time more is betting on temporary employment.
Thus, it considers “necessary” that changes occur in the legal framework, so that a “turn” can be made to a labor market that makes “a clear commitment to precarize and reject permanent contracts”.
In Sarmiento’s words, “Galicia has to respond to economic dynamics, especially in the industrial sphere”, because the community is “out of step” with the rest of the state.
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