ARCHIVED - Murcia unemployment figures down in the third quarter

6% fewer out of work in Murcia between June and September

The latest active population survey published on Thursday by the government shows that during the third quarter of this year the number of people in work in the Region of Murcia increased by 0.22% to 535,400, while the number of people out of work dropped by 6.6% to 164,600. This improvement exceeds the overall nationwide fall of 5.8%.

There are 2 sets of unemployment figures produced by the central statistics unit, one monthly which records the unemployment level in state employment offices, ie those who are actively looking for work and claiming benefits, and a quarterly set of statistics, the EPA, which calculates the status of the employable population, ie how many people are able to work and whether they are actively seeking work, claiming unemployment benefits or whether they have exhausted their entitlement to any benefits and are simply declared as unemployed. It must be remembered that benefit entitlements in Spain are considerably different to the UK and there are many people who have exhausted their rights to claim benefit and have simply given up looking for work: these people fall outside of the monthly figures, so are only truly "caught " by statistical analysis in the quarterly Active Population Survey.

This set of figures is also used by the European Commission when comparing Spains employment status with that of the rest of Europe.

The figures mean that over the twelve months ending on 30th September 2015 the number of unemployed people in Murcia was cut by 13.01%.

The same bulletin reports that the size of the active population (ie the amount of people technically able to work) in the Region of Murcia decreased by 10,400 during the period between June and September, falling to 699,700, and that the shrinkage over the last twelve months has amounted to 20,100 (a fall of 2.79%). This apparent fall in the size of the potential workforce can be due to lots of factors, including people reaching retirement age, joining education courses, dying, moving elsewhere and leaving the country as often occurs with those who came to Spain seeking work, although much of it in the case of Murcia relates to foreign nationals leaving the region. These are predominantly South-Americans and Moroccans in the case of Murcia, as much of the imigrant population work in the agricultural sector, which has been hit by drought during the hot summer and concerns about the high cost of water, meaning fields have been left unplanted in some areas, so therefore, there is less work.

So although the figures sound pretty good, the unions are unhappy about this latest set of figures, saying that the fall in the size of the workforce in Murcia doesnt actually mean our employment situation has really improved, as the percentage of unemployed in this region is still above the national average. At 30th September the unemployment rate in the Region of Murcia stood at 23.49% of the adult population, the fifth highest in the country behind Extremadura, Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha and the Canaries and significantly higher than the nationwide rate of 21.18%.

However, this is a huge improvement when compared to the peak of the economic crisis when the national figure hit 27%, although the current rate is still the highest in Europe, second only to Greece.