Registered unemployment fell 1.77% in Asturias in December after four months of increase and experienced the fourth largest decline in the country in percentage terms (after Andalusia, Madrid and Extremadura) and with an intensity 25 hundredths greater than what was contracted in Spain (1.52%). The Christmas campaign has contributed to this, as evidence that the greatest withdrawal has occurred in the Asturian case in the services sector, which concentrated 92% of the reduction. The total number of unemployed in the community stood at 61,887 people at the end of the year, the lowest unemployment figure in the region in a month of December since 2007, which was the record year for employment in Spain up to then.
Despite this good labor market data, Asturias shows a weaker behavior than the national group in the accumulated calculation of the last year.
In the last twelve months the fall in unemployment is 4.4%, almost half of what has been reduced in Spain (8.64%) and it was the fifth smallest reduction in the autonomous communities: Asturias only surpassed the behavior of Castilla-La Mancha, Murcia, Navarra and the Basque Country. As a consequence of it, the region concentrates 2.18% of the Spanish unemployed. This proportion is higher than the Asturian demographic weight (2.13%). In absolute terms, unemployment fell in Asturias by 1,114 people last month and by 2,911 in annual terms.
Unemployment fell in December in all sectors except construction, where those registered in the unemployment offices increased by 152 people. Conversely, unemployment fell mainly in the service sector (-1,025), followed by the group of applicants without previous employment (-122), industry (-108) and the primary sector (-11). And of the 78 councils, only 19 increased unemployment in December.
The weakness is also perceived in the occupation. Affiliation to Social Security fell last month in the Principality by 24 people (representing a fall of 0.01%) while in Spain it grew by 0.06%. The number of contributors grew in seven regions and Asturias, among the ten in which it fell, was the one that experienced the least contraction. In annual terms, affiliation increased in all communities and Asturias has been the one with the second smallest increase, with an increase of 0.62%, only higher than Extremadura (0.35%). If the average affiliation figures are taken in 2022, the increase in Asturias was 7,821 contributors (up to 372,551), which represents an improvement of 2.14% compared to the 3.87% increase in Spain.
FADE said that although the strike leaves “the best closing of the year by number of unemployed since 2007”, “Asturias shows a weakness in its ability to create employment.” UGT Asturias highlighted “the positive effects of the labor reform” on permanent contracts, but warned that “affiliation with Social Security shows stagnation.”