More and more indicators show an improvement in Barcelona's economic situation after the impact of the crisis caused by covid, which has especially affected large capitals. The latest is the city's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with a year-on-year growth of 16.2% during the second quarter, according to calculations by the Municipal Data Office of the Barcelona City Council.
Barcelona's economy registers a positive trend for the first time since the last quarter of 2019, after five consecutive quarters of declines. The increase in the second quarter responds to the rebound due to the comparison with the most critical moment of the pandemic. Compared to the performance of Catalan GDP (+18.9%) and Spanish GDP (+17.5%) during the same period, Barcelona's is slightly lower.
The recovery of activity has been very significant in most sectors and the rebound effect means that the increases have been more intense in the activities that have suffered the most from the crisis derived from the pandemic. By sectors, industry is leading this GDP escalation with a growth of 18.9%; construction, with an increase of 16.5%, and the services sector, with 14.7%.
The recovery of activity has been very significant in most sectors and the rebound effect means that the increases have been more intense in the activities that have suffered the most from the crisis derived from the pandemicGiven the productive structure in Barcelona, the services sector is decisive in the recovery of the Catalan capital, and it is noted that its dynamics have improved by almost 20 percentage points between the first and second quarters of this year. The disaggregation of services shows that the activities of Commerce, Hospitality, Transport and Information and Communications register growth rates above 25% and are in an accelerated recovery process after having been among the sectors with the most negative dynamics.
For the Deputy Mayor for Economy, Labor, Competitiveness and Finance, Jaume Collboni, this GDP growth shows that "the city's economy is recovering dynamism after the pandemic and this is translating into the creation of businesses, opportunities and jobs." In this sense, another indicator that has improved during the second quarter has been unemployment, which continues to decrease. According to the latest data registered with the Catalan Employment Service (SOC), Barcelona has 67,208 people registered as unemployed this September.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, the number of unemployed people is below the 70,000 threshold and even improves on the values recorded in September 2019. In a period marked by restrictions on certain economic activities, the value of this indicator achieves a monthly reduction of 6%, the highest in September in over a decade. Compared to September last year, the behavior is even more positive, with a decrease of more than 24,000 unemployed people, representing a percentage drop of 26.4% in relation to the 91,262 people registered a year ago.
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