Article published by José Alberto León Alonso in El Día on 11/08/15.
The unemployed registered in the Canary Islands in the INEM in the month of October 2015 amounted to 247,162 people, with an increase of 4,849 people compared to the previous month and of 18,629 people compared to October 2014. Despite the media importance that is erroneously given to it, the registered unemployment statistic is not very relevant for the analysis of the economic situation, since in practice not all Those seeking work register in employment offices, not all those registered are actively seeking employment, as some work in the underground economy and others seek another series of social benefits that require registration. The real unemployment data in the Canary Islands was shown by the next Active Population Survey (EPA) for the third quarter, which was published on October 22, with 317,200 unemployed people in the Canary Islands, some seventy thousand more than those registered in the Employment Offices.
The variation in the number of Social Security affiliates is relevant to verify the monthly evolution of our labor market. The number of affiliates in the month of October 2015 in the Canary Islands increased by 3,750 people compared to the previous month, and by 25,040 people if compared to the month of October 2014, reaching the figure of 706,465 affiliates. This is a positive fact, although October is a traditionally good month for employment in the Canary Islands, with the start of the high season in the tourism sector. With this data, the growth rate in job creation in October 2015, measured in year-on-year terms, is reduced to 3.67% from 4.3% in the previous quarter, showing that the employment growth rate is beginning to decline from the peak reached in May (4.51%), although it is still a higher job creation rate than the Spanish rate (3.18%). However, it is striking that job creation in the Canary Islands is much lower than that of Spain's other tourist island economy, the Balearic Islands, whose economy created 5.29% of affiliates during the last year, one and a half percentage points more than the Canary Islands. And he does it year after year. If the tourism situation cannot be better, with the receiving markets of North Africa scaring away tourists with a bang, why don't we create as many jobs in the Canary Islands as in the Balearic Islands? Our tourism and urban policy has something to do with it. By reducing new hotel supply with restrictive laws and putting all kinds of urban obstacles for any project, we have endeavored with enormous success to scare away foreign and local investment in the sector. The incipient deregulation that is announced is welcome, since we are paying for the regional legislative tangle with unemployment.
In Spain as a whole, Social Security contributors have increased by 31,652 people in October. In that month, Social Security affiliates amounted to 17,221,467, 3.18% more than in the same month last year. In seasonally adjusted terms, which eliminate distortions in the work calendar, those registered with Social Security increase by 35,300 people compared to the previous month for the second consecutive month.
With sporadic negative data, it seems that the pace of job creation is stabilizing around 3.2%. In October, its year-on-year growth rate increased compared to the previous quarter in both industry (2.6%), remaining unchanged in services (3.4%), but reduced from 0.9% year-on-year to 0.7% in agriculture, and from 4.5% to 4.3% yoy. in construction. With these data, the economy seems on track to create half a million jobs in 2015 and about 400,000 in 2016, which is not bad at all, but it is somewhat below the Government's forecast of creating half a million jobs per year between 2016 and 2019.
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