The worst year for employment: 360,000 jobs destroyed, 724,000 more unemployed and another 755,000 in the limbo of the ERTE

Just a year ago, Spain made a bittersweet reading of what 2019 had been like for the labor market. Unemployment continued to decline and employment continued to rise, it was at its highest, but it was already clear that the impact of the recovery was cooling by leaps and bounds. In that January 2020, the data on registered unemployment from the previous December suggested a worrying change in trend, with the smallest increase in employment since 2013 – some 385,000 more jobs – and the best correction in the number of unemployed since 2012 – some 38,000 fewer unemployed. Today we would sign either of those two figures.

2020 will go down in history due to its abrupt – and supervening – job destruction. While waiting to analyze the impact of the potential third wave, the registered unemployment data made public today by the Labor Ministry show a negative year-on-year balance of 360,000 jobs and an unprecedented 22% increase in unemployment, to 3, 8 million unemployed. All this without counting, remember, the number of workers who are still immersed in a Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE), 755,000 as of December 31, which are not reflected in the statistics of unemployed and continue to appear in that of affiliates. Social Security.