According to the latest EPA (Enquesta de Població Activa), a survey by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics on the economically active population, 53,700 net jobs were added to the Catalan economy in the second quarter of 2016.

 

The recent data also reveals that there are currently 56,400 fewer unemployed Catalans in comparison to the same quarter of the previous year. Furthermore, unemployment rate has fallen by 3.45% (year-on-year) to 15.95%, which translates into approximately 605,000 unemployed persons in Catalonia -the lowest levels since 2008.   

 

Despite the positive figures, the Ministry of Labour’s Secretary General, Josep Ginesta, raised questions regarding the stability of the jobs created and affirmed that they did not possess the necessary “standards of quality”. Ginesta made these declarations during a press conference to evaluate the recent EPA data and underlined the urgent need of a “labour counter-reform”. “Catalonia must advance with self-government tools and a national roadmap to ensure social progress and with our own laws to redirect the labour market towards quality-based system”, he added.