The Social Security earned an average of 193,585 contributors in March compared to the previous month (+0.9%), its second highest increase in this month in the entire historical series, thanks to the hospitality boostwhich added more than 81,000 members due to the hiring associated with the Easter.
After the increase in March, higher than the average of 150,000 new employees for the 2017-2019 period, the average number of affiliates At the end of the first quarter of the year, it stood at record number of 20,901,967 employedaccording to data published this Tuesday by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.
The increase in affiliates in March is the second highest in the series in the month of Marchonly surpassed by that of 2023, when the system added more than 200,000 employees.
In the last year, from March 2023 to March 2024, Social Security has gained 525,414 affiliates in average valueswith a year-on-year growth of 2.6%.
There are more than 21 million affiliates in the seasonally adjusted series
In seasonally adjusted terms, the number of Social Security contributors registered a increase of 77,876 affiliates (+0.37%), which led the system to exceed 21 million employed people for the first time in history.
Specific, March closed with 21,032,661 workers after crossing the barrier of 21 million members for the first time on the 25th.
Within the seasonally adjusted series, 530,843 jobs have been created in the last year and more than 1.67 million compared to December 2019, before the pandemic.
Hospitality and commerce drive job growth in March
By regime, the General, the largest in the system, gained 175,978 average members in March (+1%), up to a total of 17.48 million employedwhile the Self-Employed Regime (RETA) added 15,434 members to its ranks (+0.46%), which placed the total number of self-employed contributors at 3,352,950.
Within the General Regime, The hospitality industry had the greatest increase in employment, gaining 81,151 contributors compared to the previous month (+6%). They were followed by commerce, with 13,643 more affiliates (+0.5%); education (+11,744 contributors, +0.9%), and administrative activities, which gained 10,201 employees (+0.7%).
The only monthly decline in occupancy It occurred in the activities of households as employers of domestic staff, with 35 fewer members (-0.09%).
For his part, the Special Agrarian System added 7,329 affiliates in the third month of the year (+1.1%), and the Home register registered 373 discharges (+0.1%).
The Ministry has stressed that the growth in membership compared to the pre-pandemic level is “especially intense” in sectors with high added value, such as professional, scientific and technical activities and information and communications, where employment has increased by more than 16 %.
In fact, according to Social Security, since the pandemic ended, more than one in five new members have joined these two sectorswhere the weight of indefinite contracts exceeds 85% in the case of information and communications and 75% in professional activities and whose contribution bases are 36% and 15% higher than in the rest of the sectors because they are better paid.
Temporality, at a minimum of 12.7%
According to the Ministry, the March data reflects the positive effects of labor reform on employment stability and the improvement of its quality since this standard came into force two years ago.
So, The percentage of members with a temporary contract fell in March to 12.7%, a historic low, while the percentage of employed people with permanent contracts stood at 87.3% after growing 17.3 points since the labor reform. In the case of those under 30 years of age, temporary employment has been reduced by 33.6 points, to 19.4%.
At the same time, Social Security now counts more than 3.3 million more members with an indefinite contract than in December 2021, the last month before the entry into force of the labor reform.
In the last year, members with permanent full-time contracts have increased by 4.7% (+429,645 employed), above those with part-time contracts (+4.4%, +103,490) and permanent-discontinuous workers (+4.4%, +103,490) +18,174 affiliates, +2.1%).
The Ministry has also highlighted that, compared to large European countries, job creation in Spain from the pre-Covid level has increased by 8.3%, above the rates in France (+5%), Italy ( +2.9%) and Germany (+1.5%). The same happens if we look at the gain in employment since the war began in Ukraine: while in Spain employment has grown by 6.3%, in France and Germany it has grown by around 2%.