Barcelona (CNA).- Catalonia registered a third year of improvement in the labour market and led the drop in the unemployment rate in Spain. The number of unemployed dropped to 668,600, which represents 87,900 fewer jobseekers than at the end of the previous year. Although the unemployment rate is still high, 17.7%, it is 2 points lower than at the end of 2014, according to the latest Active Population Survey (EPA). In the whole of Spain, there were 678,000 less unemployed at the end of 2015, the biggest drop in absolute numbers. By the same time, 53,000 new jobs had been created in Catalonia and more than 500,000 in the whole of Spain.
The EPA corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2015 shows that the drop in the number of unemployed in this period is the biggest since 2003 and the increase in employment, with more than 53,000 new being jobs created, is the most important figure since the crisis started in 2007.
The agricultural sector saw the highest rise in the number of employees. 7,600 new jobs were created in this sector, which represents 17.23% more than in December 2014. The industry sector added 21,300 people and increased by 3.75% in comparison to December the previous year. 2,283 people got a new job in the service sector, which increased its number of employees by 1.7% compared to December 2014. On the other hand, the construction sector was the only sector which didn’t increase its number of workers in comparison to the previous year. The unemployment rate in this sector grew by 7.4%.
The drop in unemployment amongst youngsters under 25 was also the biggest since 2010. This past December the rate was 39.03%, 15% lower than in 2014.
Regarding working hours, 85.6% of employees worked full-time while 14.4% were part-time. These percentages are very similar to those registered in 2014.
In relation to the kind of work contracts, 2,045,000 people of the 3,102,000 employed in Catalonia had permanent contracts while 520,500 were on temporary contracts.