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The rebound in employment in summer is insufficient to prevent the rise in unemployment to 16.3%

2020-10-27T22:06:43.800Z


The job market increased by almost 600,000 jobs in the summerThe labor market rebounded in the third quarter of this year. It had sunk in the second, when the harshest spring lockdown wiped out more than a million jobs in three months. In the summer it has recovered part of them, 569,600. But it is an insufficient amount to return to the pre-pandemic level and to prevent unemployment from increasing by 355,000 people, leaving the unemployment rate at 16.3%,


The labor market rebounded in the third quarter of this year.

It had sunk in the second, when the harshest spring lockdown wiped out more than a million jobs in three months.

In the summer it has recovered part of them, 569,600.

But it is an insufficient amount to return to the pre-pandemic level and to prevent unemployment from increasing by 355,000 people, leaving the unemployment rate at 16.3%, according to the Labor Force Survey (EPA).

In addition, this rebound reflected by the INE does not indicate that the worst is behind us, on the contrary, in the third quarter the coronavirus was more contained and the restrictions on activity were - despite the media attention - much more specific than they are being at the end of the year.

The summary of the great figures of the labor market in summer is completed with the total number of unemployed, 3.7 million, and of employed, 19.1 million.

Although in the latter we must add a warning: the more than 500,000 affected by the ERTE or by the self-employed who receive the extraordinary aid are included.

The blow to the labor market would have been much greater had it not been for the ERTEs and those aid to self-employed workers, whose extraordinary regulation, with its huge amount of aid, was launched and is now extended until January 31 .

They reached 3.4 million affected, a figure that decreased a lot during the summer months, dropping to that long half million.

The consequences would also have been greater had it not been for teleworking, which has allowed the activity to continue in many professions despite restrictions on mobility.

In the numbers of this EPA it is reflected that more than 10% of employed persons have worked at home more than half of the days of the week.

With all these conditioning factors, probably the data that best reflects the great ups and downs of the labor market in times of pandemic are the hours worked by all those employed together.

In him you see that significant and insufficient rebound at the same time.

In the second quarter they sank 22% compared to the first three months of the year;

in this, on the other hand, many of them have recovered, as there has been a jump of 15%.

It also shows very clearly that the level of pre-covid activity was much higher than now.

When comparing the total volume of hours worked with the same quarter the previous year, it is observed that it is still 7% below.

However, all these numbers have their limits.

In the current extraordinary situation, it is necessary to warn of the problems that the EPA has to collect in a single statistical photo everything that is happening in the labor market during these months.

The labor force survey has traditionally been the best measure of employment and unemployment, more accurate and complete than the monthly statistics.

But its own methodology and the changing reality of local and perimeter confinement, activity restrictions and states of alarm are not fully captured in a survey that results in a still photo.

There are several examples of this.

The most recurrent in these months has been that of those affected by ERTE, who are not considered unemployed despite not working (having a job and receiving remuneration, yes).

Another sample appears in what happened with those who lost their jobs in the second quarter, more than a million people.

The vast majority of them could not be considered unemployed because they could not actively seek employment, a fundamental requirement in the statistical definition, and, therefore, almost a million workers became inactive.

In summer, the state of alarm subsided and mobility recovered, which made it possible to search for employment.

This return to activity of almost 925,000 people explains why unemployment has risen despite the jump in employment.

There are other indicators that show how the pandemic has turned the labor situation around.

In the last year, employment has fallen by 3.5% when just a year ago it advanced by 1.8%.

The third quarter is usually the period of the year when the most people are working.

Summer, in previous years, boosted employment associated with tourism, especially in the branches related to it: hospitality, accommodation, transportation ... Despite the fact that in 2020 the scenario has been radically different due to the pandemic and because it has made foreign tourism almost disappear, the sector in which employment has grown the most this quarter has been services, with 476,300, a figure that almost multiplies by six the increase in construction.

Industry has also recovered and only agriculture has lost ground.

The recovery in employment has allowed one of the most dramatic indicators offered by the EPA to improve: the number of households in which none of its members receive an income, which reached 670.00 in the second quarter. In the third, on the other hand, it was reduced substantially, remaining at 597,000, a quantity very similar to what it had when the pandemic broke out. On the contrary, and in line with the increase in unemployment, the total number of families in which no one works did grow. It reached 1.18 million.

Source: elparis

All business articles on 2020-10-27

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