Last week we published an article on improved unemployment data, and coincidentally, Employment disagreed. Now we are glad to confirm that December 2013 was the best year for jobs since the crisis began, because 107,570 people dropped off the unemployment registry. Also, Social Security filings rose by 64,097 in December.
Even if filings fell by 85,041 last year, the truth is that this figure is better than anything we have seen since 2007. The Secretary of State of Social Security, Tomás Burgos, explained that "this is not a random event." He ventured to say that "in just several weeks, one or two months at the max" social security filings will be in the black. We are watching the clock closely for that to happen. In the worst case scenario, this will not happen until March. December was also a breather for young workers (hiring was better for this population than for any other) and the EU, which has been worried about the Spanish labor market. These small wins for workers are relevant, but we can't think that the worst has passed.
The government should quickly wrap up labor reforms by offering hiring incentives to companies. Nobody denies that the efforts the government has made to date are worth the trouble and are taking the country in the right direction, but we need to trust that temporary contracts (92% of the 14.7 million jobs contracts that were signed last year) do not make the situation worse in the future. If jobs and credit bounce back, then we can start talking about recovery.
