Social Security exceeds 500,000 new contributors for another year in 2024 and consolidates its position above 21.3 million

Social Security registered 21,344,487 contributors in December, discounting seasonality and the calendar effect. This represents an increase of 501,551 employed people so far this year. It has now been 56 months of uninterrupted growth in employment in this series, after adding 42,700 contributors this month, which takes the series to a new high.

As a result, Social Security will again exceed 500,000 new contributors in 2024, as was already the case in 2023.

The average number of contributors (original series) also exceeded 21.3 million (21,337,962), which means that it is the December with the highest level of employment in the historical series, with 501,952 more than a year ago (+2.41%). This is 35,500 more than in November. These figures mean that, in the last four years, almost 2.3 million people have joined the Social Security system.

In month-on-month comparisons by sector, in the General Regime, Artistic, Recreational and Entertainment Activities (+1.2%) and Trade (+1.1%) stand out. It falls in Hotels and Restaurants (-1.9%) and Construction (-1.07%).

In year-on-year terms, most of the sectors of the General Regime (+2.9%) gained contributors, with particular intensity experiencing this increase in: Agriculture, Livestock, Hunting, Forestry and Fishing (+6.2%), Transport and Storage (+5.5%) and Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (+4.6%).

The number of self-employed, meanwhile, is close to 3.4 million (RETA and SETA), with 3,386,765 self-employed workers, after adding 42,396 workers in the last year, thanks to the pull of the high value-added sectors. This is the highest level for a month in December. In the year-on-year comparison, 47,608 more workers have been registered in the RETA alone, excluding the agricultural self-employed, reaching 3.22 million, the highest figure in the series since 2008. In the last year, Information and Communications and Scientific and Technical Professional Activities have added 21,553 self-employed workers.

In the last decade, employment of foreigners has grown faster than that of nationals. In December, contributors from other countries accounted for 13.5% of the total, almost 2.88 million workers in the original series.

On the other hand, if we focus on the areas most affected by the DANA, the contributor data shows no impact on employment. Social Security contributors in the province of Valencia increased 6,427 compared to November and 28,393 compared to a year ago, to a total of 1,176,453.

Higher employment growth than other major European economies

Job creation in Spain (+8.1%) exceeds that of the major European countries (Italy, +5.5%; France, +2.3%; Germany, +1.7%) since the end of 2021, before the entry into force of the labour reform.

More than 10.1 million women registered

In December, the average number of contributors exceeded 10.1 million and reached the highest level in the series, with 10,109,202 employed women, representing 47.4% of the total number of workers, a percentage at historical highs.

Female employment growth is 10.8% since the year before the labour reform, which translates into an increase of 2.9 percentage points above that of men, which is 7.9%. In year-on-year terms, the figure for women contributors is also outpacing that of male contributors: 2.8%, compared to 2.1% for men.

Youth employment also shows above-average dynamism, with an increase of 20.5% since 2021, which is up to 11.2 points higher than overall employment growth (9.3%), i.e. it is growing more than twice as fast as the average.

High value-added occupations

The annual situation of contributors confirms that growth is mainly concentrated in high value-added sectors, such as Information and Communications and Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities. These activities also show significant growth so far in 2024 (with 75,000 more workers) and increases of around 4%, compared to the national average of 2.7%.

Almost 3.7 million more workers with permanent contracts since the labour reform was passed

Not only are there more jobs, but their quality has also increased. There are currently more than 14.7 million people in employment with permanent contracts, of whom more than 9.7 million work full-time. This represents almost 3.7 million more contributors (3,667,547) with permanent contracts since the approval of the labour reform.

The dynamism of the labour market and the increase in the quality of employment are helping to strengthen the sustainability of the pension system and the ratio of contributors to pensioners stands at 2.44, levels that guarantee the sustainability of the pension system.

Non official translation