The Government sees "logical" that the decline in unemployment and job creation moderate after many record months

Labor and Social Security highlight the improvement in the quality of employment due to the "most effective labor reform in history"

MADRID, 4 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Secretaries of State for Employment and Social Security, Joaquín Pérez Rey and Borja Suárez, respectively, have considered it logical that the rate of decline in unemployment and job creation slowed down in June after many months setting record records.

"One very important variable must be taken into account and that is that unemployment continues to fall. It is evident that the rate of decline cannot occur with the same intensity with 4 million unemployed as with 2.8 million, but the drop in unemployment continues to be very significant", explained Pérez Rey.

The new Secretary of State for Social Security has spoken along the same lines, who sees it as logical that, over time, the growth rate of affiliation will moderate, which does not mean, he specified, that it is not having an "extraordinarily positive" behaviour.

They have also downplayed the fact that the reduction in unemployment in June (-42,409 people) has been the lowest since 2008, discounting 2020, the year of the pandemic, and that the affiliation, on the contrary, has signed the third best June of his story.

"The fact that there are small imbalances is not necessarily an anomaly. (The data on unemployment and affiliation) work with different administrative procedures and there may be these imbalances", pointed out Pérez Rey, who pointed out that, given the "intense job creation process ", many workers not listed on the unemployment lists may have found work through other channels, which would explain the better performance of affiliation.

At the press conference to present the unemployment and affiliation statistics for the sixth month of the year, both stressed that the data reflect the "vigour" and "great dynamism" of the labor market in a context marked by the uncertainty of the war in Ukraine and rising prices.

Thus, Pérez Rey has highlighted that the unemployment and hiring data show the "enormous progress" that the quality of employment has experienced thanks to "the most effective labor reform in history". "He has turned around the contractual mold that we had and that condemned us to precariousness", he underlined.

In fact, he has stated that permanent contracts have become the norm, with the signing of almost 780,000 contracts in June, the highest monthly figure in history, in a month in which temporary contracts were traditionally the protagonist.

The Secretary of State has highlighted that the data for the first half of the year are "extraordinary", as they show that 2.2 million more indefinite contracts have been signed and 3.6 million fewer temporary contracts due to the disappearance of the construction contract and service and by the deceleration of eventual contracts.

The 'number two' of Labor has explained that unemployment only rose in June in the autonomous community of Andalusia, which has been related to the end of the red fruit agricultural campaigns. He has also pointed out that the "slight" rise in youth unemployment in June has been especially concentrated in the Andalusian community.

Asked if the Labor Inspection is detecting a greater breach of the hiring regulations after the labor reform, Pérez Rey has indicated that it is the opposite. "I would dare to say that there is a lower level of non-compliance because repeatedly what was done before was to abuse temporary hiring, but now most companies are hiring properly," he assured.

For his part, the new Secretary of State for Social Security, who was making his debut at this press conference, described the enrollment data as "historic" both in seasonally adjusted terms and in average values.

"All this leads us to verify the great dynamism of the labor market," Suárez stressed, indicating that job creation is being supported by the private sector, while during the pandemic it was the public sector that contributed to there was a "bleeding" in employment.

Looking ahead to the coming months, both Secretaries of State find it difficult to make forecasts in the current climate of uncertainty stemming from the war in Ukraine, but they have made it clear that the labor market is proving to be "much more robust and less volatile" and with "large doses of resistance" in the face of current economic shocks.

Likewise, and in response to the PP's complaint that the government's data is being "made up" and that more than 40,000 people had more than one permanent contract in June, Pérez Rey and Suárez have criticized the fact that the main opposition party dedicate yourself to "diving" into the statistics to try to "distort" some data that are really positive.

"This month more permanent contracts have been made than ever, more than 780,000. That in that ocean 41,000 people have had more than one indefinite contract is insignificant," said the Labor 'number two', who explained that this does not have why mean that an "anomaly" is taking place, but rather that it may be due to the fact that there are workers who have changed jobs for better working conditions.