The Spanish labor market has become asymptomatic to the new waves of coronavirus and, despite the advance of new variants like the omicron, maintains its employment growth and the reduction in the number of workers affected by an erte. Something that has not happened in previous waves and that was settled with a small step backwards in terms of effective occupation. This is confirmed by the consolidated data and the projections for the end of the month presented this Monday by the Minister of Inclusion, José Luís Escrivá, who advances a month of January that will close like another “very good month for employment”.
Despite the new restrictions and the rebound in cases due to the omicron variant, the number of workers affected by an erte continues to decline in Spain. As of January 13, there were in Spain a total of 109,159 employees in a suspension file, which represents a reduction of 34% in the last two and a half months and a figure well below the peak of 3.5 million workers on suspension that was reached in the spring of 2020. The sectors that concentrate greater affectation are the Travel agencies (more than 1 in 4 of all workers in the ERTE are employed in this sector), the air Transport and the accommodations.
And the affectation of those suspended is less and less over the total of their day, since half of them work a few hours despite the erte. Unlike previous waves of the pandemic, “when in these situations the workers rebounded a little bit. In this case it has not been the case. What shows the capacity of the economic system to function without significant restrictions on activity in situations like these”, Escrivá stated.
Regarding the impact on sick leave due to covid, the person in charge of Social Security has affirmed that he does not have the updated data, but he has advanced that “we are already behind the maximums in a generalized way”. According to the latest data made public by its Ministry, as of December 23, a total of 240,011 workers had been sick due to covid during the first three weeks of December; triple than in November but less than during the fifth wave of the summer.