Jobs recovery was much stronger than economic recovery says Infojobs-Esade Report

The impact of the pandemic in Spain during 2020 was greater than in its European partners. After this exceptional period, there was no certainty that the country would quickly recover in 2021 from the economic, labor, health, and social ravages caused by the disease. The changing nature of the coronavirus crisis is the main explanation for the behavior of many of these variables.

However, as InfoJobs pointed out this morning, not all of these variables have recovered at the same speed over the last year. The progressive but sustained recovery in employment has been much greater than that of the national economy. This was one of the main conclusions discussed by Spain’s leading employment platform during the presentation of the InfoJobs-Esade 2021 Report on the Spanish Labor Market. The analysis includes the results of the various employment indicators that the platform extracts from the activities of companies and job candidates, as well as the main trends in the world of work and an assessment of future challenges for employment.

Gemma Sorigué, director-general of InfoJobs, said: "We are at a time of change. We must take on the global challenges and adapt to new times in terms of employment. Sustainability will be a common thread in the years ahead and sustainable employment is quality employment".

In 2021, InfoJobs logged a total of 2,274,383 job vacancies in Spain, 744,263 more than in 2020 (a growth of 49%). It is worth remembering that, due to the outbreak of the pandemic, 2020 was a difficult year for the jobs market, which resulted in a 46% drop in the published number of vacancies on InfoJobs compared to 2019. Therefore, 2021 has regained some of the ground lost in 2020. The nearly 2.3 million vacancies published on InfoJobs puts 2021 at the level of 2016 and 2017 – which were years of strong job creation.

"The implementation of temporary redundancy plans, and the start of the Next Generation-EU fund investments have benefitted the labor market, with the creation of 840,000 jobs and the unemployment rate falling to 13.3%", says Anna Ginès, lecturer at Esade Law School and director of Esade's Institute for Labor Studies. "The future of the Spanish labor market will be determined by the power of active employment policies and the new regulatory framework to reduce its volatility. We may also see effects of the global economic and geopolitical situation, such as the supply crisis or the war in Ukraine”, she added.

InfoJobs mirrors the market and indications of more quality jobs

Some 40% of vacancies published on InfoJobs during 2021 were for temporary jobs (883,949). This is an increase of 81% over the previous year. Permanent jobs came in second place (535,170) and accounted for 24% of vacancies published on the job portal in 2021: 45% up on the previous year.

"InfoJobs is an excellent indicator of the Spanish labor market, and its reliability was not affected by the exceptional circumstances caused by the pandemic," added Gemma Sorigué.

In addition, data published in the last two months by the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy shows that the market is responding well to the recent labor reform, and the share of permanent vacancies in the platform is expected to continue increasing in the months and years ahead.

Offer

Most sectors have grown since 2020 

Sales and marketing was once again the sector with the highest volume of vacancies in 2021, with a total of 490,729, or some 22% of the total vacancies offered on InfoJobs and an increase of 57% on 2020 (311,666). This sector was followed by purchasing, logistics, and warehousing (281,681 vacancies); customer service (228,391); professions, arts, and crafts (210,233); and IT and telecommunications (198,891).

The 2020 report noted how the pandemic restrictions had put a brake on job postings in almost every sector. All sectors offered fewer positions than in 2019 – with the exception of healthcare. Imagining a pendulum is an effective way to approximate what happened in 2021.

In 2020, sales and marketing lost the most vacancies compared to 2019 (-172,500), followed by purchasing, logistics, and warehousing (-166,237), which is logical since they were also the sectors that offered the most positions. Moreover, these sectors led the recovery in 2021: 179,063 more vacancies in sales and marketing, and 118,245 more in purchasing, logistics and warehousing. The sectors with the greatest increase in published vacancies in absolute terms compared to 2020 were: professions, arts, and crafts (up 80,748); customer service (up 65,590); and tourism and catering (up 57,894).

Leaving aside the sectors with the most growth, there were two sectors that shrank: education and training (down 3%) and healthcare (down 2%). For education and training, this drop continues a decline noticeable since 2017. In that year, the volume of vacancies for the education and training sector on InfoJobs peaked at 84,322. This figure has progressively fallen to 59,878 in 2020 and 58,058 in 2021.

There are just over 1.1 million people working in education and training – and according to data from the national employment agency (SEPE) four out of ten are in the public sector. If we focus only on the 221,165 more people working in the education sector than in 2017, we find that 71% are in the public sector (which has its own recruitment channels outside InfoJobs). Healthcare, meanwhile, was the only sector that had increased vacancies in 2020. This increase was also due to the emergence of covid, and the efforts made to deal with the health crisis.

DEMAND

Gap between professional skills and market demand continues

In 2021, some 3,530,914 people registered for a job offer on InfoJobs. This was a slight increase on 2020 (6,987 more applicants). Unlike vacancies, which are much more exposed to economic ups and downs, the number of job candidates is more stable and reflects a more cyclical perception of the labor market.

In terms of educational levels, 34% of candidates have a university education, 28% have vocational training, and 18% have a basic school education. These are the three main groups. However, only 14% of vacancies published last year required a university education – which represents a notable gap for this group. The gap is much smaller for vocational training: 28% of candidates have vocational training and 23% of vacancies require this level of studies. In the case of basic studies and people with no studies, the situation is reversed: there are more vacancies than applicants.

"This gap is due to a mismatch between the skills of university-educated professionals and what the job market wants. The solution lies in the reorientation of Spanish production towards high value-added activities – with a strong role for the booming digital and industrial sectors that enable the development of human capital with higher education," says Mónica Pérez, director of communications and studies at InfoJobs. "There are two training needs that must be addressed: courses must be appropriate for the technical-technological profiles that the job market demands; and candidates and companies must invest in continuous training in hard and soft skills that are oriented to personal and professional goals”.

COMPETITION AND SALARIES

Healthcare salaries have grown the most

The average gross annual salary offered for vacancies posted on InfoJobs during 2021 was €24,555. This figure is 2.5% less than 2020, when the average was €25,173. But, if we look back, we see that the pay offered in 2021 was 2.3% above the €24,003 of 2019. This change over the last two years results from the effects of the health crisis on job offers.

The year 2020 saw the greatest economic restrictions seen to date and these paralyzed dozens of economic sectors for months at a time. In contrast, 2021 saw the reopening of the economy and job growth, which led to increased hiring and revived labor markets.

Certain sectors and specific low-skilled jobs in lower salary ranges have awakened and again become active – and this has pushed down the average salary offered. For the third quarter of 2021, according to data from the national statistical office (INI), the total wage cost in Spain averaged €23,428 per year, which indicates that the average salary at InfoJobs is 5% higher than the national average.

IT and telecommunications vacancies have the highest average gross salary: €31,898. But the sectors that saw the greatest salary increases offered with respect to 2020 were related with the health emergency: namely, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. In healthcare, a high demand for nursing stands out, together with significant increases for general medicine and psychology. All these positions have contributed to a more than €1,000 rise in the average salary compared to 2020.

The sector that experienced the greatest drop was education and training. Despite this unwelcome news, this phenomenon can be explained by the pandemic. With the health situation in classrooms under control, the critical need for more staff has decreased – resulting in lower salaries and fewer vacancies.