The recently ended 2023 has represented for Catalonia a year of historical employment record, with 3,716,000 people working. This figure implies that 197,600 more people are employed in Catalonia. The most recent similar increase occurred in the distant 2005, according to the Active Population Survey (EPA) of the National Institute of Statistics (INE). With these data, the employment rate (employed people compared to the working-age population) stood at 72.1% in 2023.
The increase in employment and the decrease in unemployment occurred in a year in which the active population increased by 176,800 people, exceeding four million. However, the figures are not homogeneous when analyzed by sex, as unemployment has decreased by 21,600 men, while it has increased by 700 women. Specifically, there are 1.94 million men working, and 1.77 million women employed in Catalonia.
The unemployment rate increased slightly compared to the second quarter, when it was 8.4%Regarding the last quarter of 2023 in particular, Catalonia has closed the year with an unemployment rate of 8.97%, which represents the lowest rate in the fourth quarter since 2007. Specifically, the number of unemployed people in Catalonia at the end of 2023 stood at 366,300. Despite being the best figure to close the year in more than a decade, the unemployment rate increased slightly compared to the second quarter, when it was 8.4%, a figure that represents about 8,600 people.
In the specific case of Barcelona, the unemployment rate for the last quarter of the year stood at 8.44%, while the employment rate of the population was 57.6%. This was the highest figure of 2023, and exceeds the 55% of the same period of the previous year. The figures are in this case also unequal between men and women: the employment rate for men was 61.5% in Barcelona, while for women it was 54.1%.
"The year of employment"
In this context, "2023 has been the year of employment in Catalunya," proclaimed the Minister of Business and Labor of the Generalitat, Roger Torrent, when evaluating the EPA data. Catalunya has led employment growth at the state level, with 5.6%. "25% of the job creation in the State comes from Catalunya," meaning that one out of every four new workers in Spain is in Catalan territory.
Torrent assured that the 2023 results reflect an "extremely robust behavior of the labor world," even in a year marked by global uncertainty. To advance in this direction and in the face of forecasts of an economic slowdown, Torrent guaranteed that the Govern is working to reduce structural unemployment and to attract new investments that generate quality jobs.