September is the month of returning: home, to routine, and to work. After the return operation, working Barcelona, with 1.27 million affiliations to Social Security, starts a new course with an unemployment rate of 7.7% and, on the other hand, more than 24,000 jobs to fill, according to data from Barcelona Activa. What is this working Barcelona that, surely, returns to work this week?
The first photograph shows that Barcelona city registered 1,272,677 affiliations to Social Security in June 2026, 0.9% less than the previous month. And of these, 1,138,518 correspond to employees and 134,159 to self-employed workers. That is, approximately one in ten affiliations corresponds to a self-employed person.
The number of affiliations, however, is not exactly the same as the number of people working: the same person can accumulate more than one affiliation. Therefore, to know how many people are effectively employed in the city, it is necessary to look at the Active Population Survey (EPA). According to the latest available data from the Barcelona City Council, corresponding to the first quarter of 2026, there were 862,000 employed people in the city, out of a total of 913,000 active people —that is, people who work or are looking for work—. And if we look at the province of Barcelona, the EPA identifies that there are 3.18 million active people, of whom 2.94 million are employed.
Regarding unemployment, Barcelona city has a rate of 7.7%, with data from the second quarter of 2026. This is a percentage practically identical to that of the province of Barcelona as a whole, also 7.7%, and slightly higher than that of Catalonia as a whole, 7.9%. And beyond our borders, Barcelona's unemployment rate is lower than that of Spain as a whole (9.9%), identical to that of Madrid (7.7%) and still quite above the European average, which is 6% in the European Union and 6.3% in the Eurozone.
This 7.7% is, therefore, a rate perceived with optimism, but it hides inequalities that show that the labor market does not work the same for everyone. For example, among young people, who register a much higher unemployment rate: in Catalonia, the unemployment rate for those under 25 years old stands at 16.05%, more than double the general Catalan rate.
And there are also gender differences, although they do not necessarily translate into a higher female unemployment rate. In Barcelona, women accounted for 56% of registered unemployment in June 2026, with 34,322 unemployed women compared to 26,851 men. And the difference is more visible when we look at long-term unemployment: according to Barcelona Activa, women account for almost 61% of very long-term unemployment.
However, despite the difference, hirings paint a more positive future picture: in June 2026, labor hiring was totally balanced: 39,304 contracts for women and 40,022 for men. But if we cross gender and the type of working day of these new labor contracts, the differences between men and women are again significant. According to the Municipal Data Office of the Barcelona City Council, almost 65% of contracts signed by men from January to June 2026 have been full-time, while in the case of women the percentage drops to 52.1%. In contrast, almost four out of ten contracts for the female collective have been part-time (39.4%), a proportion that in the case of men is considerably lower (28%).
That is, the presence of women continues to be majority in part-time and permanent-seasonal contracts, where they represent 59% and 54.5% of the total, respectively. In contrast, in full-time contracts, the male collective predominates, with 54.8% of the total.
"Digital talent represents 6.5% of the city's total employment"
Working Barcelona is, above all, a Barcelona of services. In June 2026, 1,153,114 affiliations to Social Security corresponded to the services sector, compared to 72,856 in industry and 38,309 in construction. Agriculture, with 830 affiliations, has a very small weight in the city's labor market.
These are, moreover, services and an industry increasingly linked to technological, innovative and higher value-added activities, in parallel with the transformation of the productive model. And it is at this intersection between technology and economic activity where Barcelona is gaining weight, thanks to a digital talent that already totals 135,890 professionals. According to the eighth edition of the Digital Talent Overview 2026, prepared by Mobile World Capital Barcelona, these professionals already represent 6.5% of the city's total employment.
And the growth rate is particularly significant: digital employment advances 3.6 times faster than the overall Barcelona labor market. While the number of digital professionals grew by 4.85% in 2025, the city's total employment grew by 1.34%. Barcelona, therefore, not only has more digital talent than a year ago, but the technology sector is growing at a clearly higher rate than employment in general.
And if there is one area that is accelerating this transformation even more, it is artificial intelligence. According to Adobe's AI City Index, Barcelona is the city in Spain that shows the best adaptation to AI, with a score of 94.24 out of 100, ahead of Madrid (89.29) and Valencia (70.66).
Barcelona also leads the ranking in AI-related job offers per million inhabitants, with 93.39, and obtains the highest score in the index of occupations linked to this technology, with 50 points.
All of this paints a picture of a working Barcelona that is changing: more digital, more technological, and with a growing demand for specialized profiles. But, at the end of the day, or rather at the end of the month, all these figures have one goal: to receive a salary of approximately 36,466 gross euros per year. This is, in fact, the average salary of residents in Barcelona from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives of the Barcelona City Council, corresponding to the year 2024. It is 3% more than the previous year, although, once inflation is discounted, the gain in purchasing power is practically imperceptible: only 0.1%.
And behind this average there are significant differences depending on where one lives. Sarrià-Sant Gervasi has the highest average salary in the city, with 61,030 euros annually, 67% above the Barcelona average. At the other extreme is Nou Barris, with 26,909 euros.
"Sarrià-Sant Gervasi has the highest average salary in the city, with 61,030 euros annually"
And, of course, the gap is also gender-based. The average salary for women residents in Barcelona was 33,349 euros in 2024, 15.8% less than that of men, who reached 39,602 euros. However, the evolution in recent years gives us hope that the difference has been narrowing: since 2010, the wage gap has been reduced by more than nine percentage points.
Barcelona returns to work, therefore, with some pending tasks, but also with many reasons to look forward to these last four months of the year: more employment, more talent, and an economy increasingly prepared for the future.
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