The debate on the lack of labor is still surprising when Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. But the problem continues to gain importance in the economic debate, while 42.8% of companies, according to the Bank of Spain, see a threat to their activity in the difficulties in finding staff. A statement that contradicts the latest data from the European Statistics Office (Eurostat), which raises the percentage of wasted labor in our country to 19.4%: a total of 4.9 million people.
Since the end of the financial crisis, Spain has sharply reduced this indicator, which reached a record of 37% in 2013. The rate recorded in the second quarter is the lowest in the historical series (dating back to 2009). But the improvement is still insufficient for our country to stop being a leader in what is called the “work slowdown”, the indicator that measures the volume of potential workers that an economy is underutilizing in its labor market.
The average in the EU is 11.7% and 12.7% for the Eurozone. In Germany (one of the countries with the highest rate of vacancies to be filled) it stands at 7.1%, in France at 14.1% and in Italy at 16.1%, although In Finland and Sweden they reach 18 and 17.5% respectively. To better contextualize what this data means, we need to understand how it is produced.
A waste of work
Labor underemployment is based on the concept of “extended active population”, different from that of “active population” used both by the statistics of the Labor Force Survey (EPA) prepared by the INE and by the Labor Force Survey (LFS). ) prepared by Eurostat.
These measures only distinguish between employees and the unemployed, that is, unemployed people who are actively looking for work and are available to immediately join a position. But slack also takes into account unemployed people who do not meet either of these two conditions and who are classified in conventional statistics as “inactive”. It also breaks down underemployed part-time employees, who are employed. but for half the hours they would like to do it.
Thus, Spain’s 19.4% of underemployment is distributed 11.2% unemployment4.4% underemployment (the second highest percentage in the EU after the Netherlands), 2.8% unemployed people who want to work but are not actively looking for work (known as the “discouragement effect”) and 1% who do, but are not available. These last two hypotheses “hidden unemployed” total 958,000 peoplealthough its percentage is within the EU average.
Despite this, total wasted labor not classified as unemployed continues to contribute 8.2 percentage points to additional underemployment, the fourth highest figure after Finland, Sweden and Sweden. Italy.
The decline of this indicator in Spain in recent years depends on the decline in unemployment according to the conventional definition and, to a lesser extent, in the discouraged and underemployed. In this scenario, it always seems strange that businesses in our country are reporting a shortage of workers.
A third of those under 30 are emaciated
One of the common explanations for the phenomenon points to the aging of the active population: 50.1% of employed workers are over 45 years old and 6 out of ten are unemployed. However, this is not a demographic trend different from that observed in the rest of the EU; our data is even a little better than our neighbors thanks to the injection of immigration in recent years.
Furthermore: if we analyze slack by age group, we see that between 25 and 55 years old, an age group considered “privileged” for measuring the availability of labor (because it excludes workers of the first and last year). of professional life) It is also always the highest.
Among those under 30, this figure rises to almost 33%, although it is lower than in Finland and Sweden. This is explained by young people who are not available for work or they are not actively looking for it, while in Spain the main reason for this underutilization is unemployment itself. In the rest of the age group, it exceeds the European average.
Thus, it is difficult to conclude that demographics are the factor that explains the labor shortage, while the underutilization of potential workers is general across all age groups, and is also particularly high among workers in the first years of their professional career. In other words, we cannot say that companies cannot find young people to work. if they stop relying on a third of them.
The example of the hotel industry
This gap between business perception and data on the Spanish labor market is one of the biggest headaches for economic analysts. A growing body of research indicates that although the consequences of the problem appear similar to those experienced by our neighbors, the causes are different.
One of the most recent analyzes of this phenomenon was made last Friday by the governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escriva, who, during a conference last Thursday, highlighted the increase in the lack of manpower. of work as a condition that limits business activity, both in the EU and in Spain. The comparison clearly shows that in our country the problem has less impact.
Of course, they also highlight a relevant nuance: while in Europe the “threat” of labor shortage strongly affects the manufacturing industry, in Spain it focuses almost exclusively on serviceswhile in the manufacturing sector it increased with a much lower intensity.
This leads to the conclusion that the mismatch between labor supply and demand has a marked sectoral character. A clear example would be the hospitality industry. Other studies by the Bank of Spain show that, within services, the hotel industry is the activity that presents the most difficulties in finding staff (even more than construction). This despite the fact that it is also one of those that has mobilized the most jobs in Spain over the last decade.
The fact that it is now unable to find employees in a “fishing pool” of 4.9 million potential workers is a clear indication of the loss of competitiveness in generating jobs. A difficult problem to solve simply with salary increases or better working conditions while many companies in the sector These are SMEs or microSMEs which have practically no margin to assume this cost..
