InfoJobs-ESADE study: 54% of companies are confident that new technologies will allow them to create Jobs

Link to the InfoJobs-ESADE report

Automation and new technologies are opening up new opportunities in the labour market. At present, 54% of companies say they are confident that new technologies will enable them to create new jobs and 88% do not believe that automation will destroy jobs in the next five years. These are some of the highlights of the InfoJobs-ESADE Annual Report on the State of the Labour Market in Spain.

The Spanish workforce, meanwhile, does not feel truly threatened by the impact of new technologies on the labour market. According to the report, 76% of Spanish workers do not believe that automation and new technologies will threaten their job and 80% believe that training can mitigate this risk. People with a higher education level perceive less uncertainty in their professional future related to the emergence of new technologies and automation, but 40% of unemployed people believe that their professional future is at risk because of these factors.

Great job opportunities in IT and telecommunications

In addition to offering the highest average salary, IT and telecommunication jobs stand out as being the least competitive on InfoJobs. In these areas, there were 12 registered users per vacancy in 2016, well below the overall average of 56 registered users per vacancy. It should be noted that competition for positions on InfoJobs fell by 7 people – from 63 to 56 registered users – with respect to the previous year. This decrease in the average number of registered users per job posting is due to the fact that the number of vacancies has grown more sharply (21.6%) than the number of registered users (8.4%).

IT and telecommunications is also the second-largest job category on InfoJobs. In 2016, this category accounted for 332,861 vacancies posted on the site (16.4% of the total), a 5.76% increase over the previous year. In particular, companies are looking for programmers, analysts and systems professionals.

Nevertheless, despite the very good opportunities available in IT and telecommunications, the sales field remains the Spanish economy's largest source of employment. Marketing and sales was once again the top category on InfoJobs, accounting for 510,883 vacancies (a quarter of the total). With 306,659 vacancies, customer service was ranked third, having seen an increase of 25.3% with respect to 2015.

Emerging job categories: cybersecurity, robotics, user experience and agile

Emerging job categories related to innovation and technology are opening up new opportunities for both young and experienced professionals who want to reinvent themselves in the workforce. According to the InfoJobs-ESADE report, the demand for back-/front-end specialists, mobile programmers, big-data solution developers and cloud-computing professionals has continued to grow over the past few years.

Other new job categories are bursting onto the scene. Cybersecurity specialist was the emerging job with the largest number of vacancies (1,270) on InfoJobs in 2016, followed by agile/scrum specialist, which has nearly doubled in size over the past two years to exceed 1,200 vacancies. This is also the emerging specialty that offers the highest average annual gross salary (€38,749). User-experience specialist and robotics professional occupy third and fourth place, with 1,018 and 761 vacancies, respectively.

Over 2 million vacancies on InfoJobs and an increase in permanent contracts

The number of vacancies posted on InfoJobs in 2016 grew by 21.6% with respect to the previous year, reaching a total of 2,029,517 job openings. This figure is nearly as high as the number of vacancies posted in 2008, and was preceded by a rising trend that started in 2012, the year with the smallest number of vacancies posted (900,000). Since 2012, the job market has recovered considerably, albeit with a modest slowdown in the year-over-year increase in the number of vacancies on InfoJobs. Nevertheless, 46% of the companies surveyed said they planned to hire new workers in 2017.

InfoJobs also saw an increase in the quality of jobs offered in Spain, with more than 472,000 vacancies for permanent positions posted in 2016. Jobs with a permanent contract increased by 8 percentage points compared to 2013 to reach 31.7% of all vacancies on InfoJobs, making it the most common category of contract type offered on the site. However, this figure is still a far cry from 48%, the percentage of permanent positions on InfoJobs in 2008.

"These figures – which, with a few nuances, are corroborated by data collected by the Spanish Public Employment Service – show a clear improvement in employment levels on the heels of the economic recovery,” commented InfoJobs General Manager Dominique Cerri. "At InfoJobs, we have exceeded 2 million vacancies, a figure last seen before the economic crisis began, and the number of permanent positions continues to grow.” She added: "Employment in IT is one of the driving forces behind this increase in quality. That sector generates very good employment opportunities, with above-average salaries and little competition in terms of the number of registered users per vacancy.” Part-time offers fell slightly, to 11.5% of all jobs posted; this figure is twice as high as it was in 2008, when part-time contracts accounted for just 5.6% of the total. Freelance jobs also decreased their share of the total, to 4.2% of vacancies, a percentage that remains well above the 2008 figure of 0.3%.
 
Employment recovery not reflected in wages, which fall slightly

As employment levels have recovered, wages have fallen slightly and working hours have been reduced. The average gross salary offered on InfoJobs in 2016 fell by 2.11% with respect to 2015, to €23,178 per year, down €500 from the previous year's figure of €23,678.

According to the InfoJobs-ESADE report, although 42% of the companies surveyed are considering giving employees a raise in the next 24 months, 53% have not raised their entry-level salaries for the last eight years. Small and medium-sized enterprises are making the largest effort in this area, as they are more likely than other types of companies to pay new hires more than they did eight years ago.

Carlos Obeso, Associate Professor at ESADE Business and Law School, commented: "The recovery of the Spanish economy is slowly being felt in different areas of employment. Spain's GDP grew by 2.3% in 2016, exactly the same as in 2015, confirming the upward trend of the past few years and nearly returning the country to its 2008 level. However, employment figures are still far from recovering their pre-crisis levels, which they are not expected to do until 2025. Although the number of jobs offered has increased, the problems of part-time work, temporary contracts and downward pressure on wages still remain.”

Self-employed IT professional with a university degree: the recipe for a good salary

According to the InfoJobs-ESADE report, the best-paid job categories on InfoJobs were IT and telecommunications, in which the average annual gross salaries were €28,362 and €27,951, respectively. In 2016, the highest-paid positions offered on InfoJobs were orthodontist and engineering director, with an average annual gross salary of €64,808 and €59,615, respectively.

By type of contract, the best salaries were those offered for freelance jobs, with a gross annual average of €32,757, followed by permanent contracts, for which the average salary was €28,502. In addition, candidates with a higher education level were able to secure jobs with higher salaries.

Differences between autonomous communities were also detected, with Madrid (€24,994) and Catalonia (€23,273) having the best-paid vacancies, on average.

Click here to read the conclusions of the InfoJobs-ESADE Annual Report on the State of the Labour Market in Spain.