The repris in employment during the summer continues to keep the revolutions in the labor market stable for another month. September ended with 3,257,802 unemployed, 76,113 less than in August (-2.28%), and the sequence of consecutive downward monthly payments now extends to seven months. According to the data transferred this Monday by the Ministries of Labor and Social Security, a dwindling collection like the current one has not been chained since 2000, more than two decades ago.
Along with the cut in the number of unemployed, the affiliations also breathe a little more air into the recovery. The number of affiliates to Social Security without taking into account the seasonal adjustment, that is, eliminating exogenous factors of a non-economic nature that influence the behavior of the monthly statistics, Social Security registered 19,531,111 average affiliates, which means 57,387 contributors more than in August.
However, as has become customary since the outbreak of the pandemic, the unemployment and affiliation data must be observed without losing sight of the number of workers in ERTE, since they do not count as unemployed but as contributors despite not being working. your activity normally. The number of people who were sheltered under this umbrella was 239,230, the lowest figure since the beginning of the pandemic more than a year and a half ago, and far from the more than three and a half million who came to meet at the time. hardest. They are, therefore, 32,960 less based on the date of notification, and 17,294 based on the date of discharge.
Taking ERTE workers out of the equation, affiliation levels are close to those recorded before the outbreak of the coronavirus. Bearing in mind the particularities of each month, the records of the last September are not only better than those of the last two years (18,876,389 and 19,323,451), but also the results presented in February 2019 (18,888 .472) and that mark the end of the pre-pandemic period. “It is impressive that the number of affiliates is already exceeding the pre-pandemic level,” congratulated economic vice president Nadia Calviño on Monday. “These are figures that we had not experienced in our history. The recovery is underway ”, he added.
The improvement in the labor market also extends until September, following the projections released in the middle of that month by the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá. “We are obtaining quite satisfactory results that reinforce the idea that the incentives designed for reactivation have worked very well,” Escrivá said at the time.
It is not the first September that he behaves in this way. The 2020 one also became the best of the series up to that point thanks to the virus containment measures began to relax moderately. Today, with a much more contained health panorama due to the success in the vaccination process, the activity in the last month of summer has been less affected, and that in September it is common for many work contracts to be concluded. The self-employed group, after the deflation in August (when more than 7,000 self-employed workers were discharged) grew again in September, reaching 3,319,875 (4,272 more).
The recovery of the labor market has reached some stability thanks to the momentum obtained during the summer months. Despite the fact that it is a traditionally good period, and that the siege of the coronavirus has also helped the season not be completely damaged, protection measures such as the ERTE will continue to be present until February 28 after the last Agreement reached by the Government, employers and unions.
Trying to ensure that the vast majority of workers who remain suspended achieve new knowledge to reengage in the job market is today the priority of the Ministry of Social Security. For this reason, companies that want to take advantage of the new ERTE, which will begin to be applied from November 1 – the current ones will remain in force until October 31 – must present a training plan together with their application to obtain improvements in the exemptions from the fees that must be paid to Social Security for suspended employees.