Spain leaves behind another year of good news for the labor market. 2025 has closed with a balance of more than half a million jobs created, around 506,500, and registered unemployment has been reduced by 152,000 people, according to December data published this Monday by the Ministry of Social Security and Labor. Both records improve the figures achieved in 2024 and reinforce employment as one of the most important levers of growth in Spain, at the head of the large economies.
“There are four years in a row of around half a million members per year, which means that Spain has created more than 2 million jobs in four years, since the labor reform began,” highlights the Ministry of Social Security, directed by Elma Saiz. The second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has highlighted the increase in employment thanks to the reduction of temporary work after the labor reform. The data, “month after month, show that the doomsayers on the right were wrong,” Díaz stated.
In total, the labor market closed 2025 very close to the employment record reached in the summer, with more than 21.8 million people working on average affiliated with Social Security. The last month of the year also left a new historical high: more than 10.35 million working women. By sex, employment has grown somewhat more among women than among men in the last year, 2.4% and 2.3%.
The Ministry highlights another milestone: on December 11, the barrier of 21.9 million people working was once again exceeded. The number of foreign workers is another of the key elements in job creation in Spain at the moment, with an increase of 7% in 2025. The total is close to the highest in the series, close to 3.1 million members. “This group represents 14% of the total in the month of December,” explains Social Security.
“More indefinite contracts, more female employment and a historic low in youth unemployment. The action of the progressive Government suits Spain well,” the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, stressed this Monday.
2025 has culminated in these outstanding records although December was not a particularly good month. Employment increased and registered unemployment was reduced compared to November, by around 19,000 and 16,000 people, respectively, but both figures are lower than those recorded this month in previous years.
Thus, job creation slowed down a little at the end of the year, from 2.41% year-on-year in November to 2.37% registered in December, as also indicated by the seasonally adjusted affiliation data, which isolates the labor market from the fluctuations typical of the calendar and seasonality. According to them, the labor market added 33,000 workers in December, compared to almost 45,000 in November and 64,500 in October, for example.
2.4 million people unemployed
Regarding registered unemployment, December reduced the number of unemployed people registered at public employment offices by almost 16,300. A timid figure than that usually recorded in the last month of the year, as the following graph illustrates.
However, the outlook for 2025 as a whole is much more positive. Last year, registered unemployment fell by 152,048 people, at a rate of almost 6%, both records that improve those achieved in 2024 (-146,738, -5.4%) and 2023 (-130,197, -4.6%).
With this decrease, registered unemployment stood at a total of just over 2.4 million people at the end of the year. Specifically, 2,408,670. These are the lowest levels in 17 years, since 2008, at the beginning of the Great Recession, which skyrocketed unemployment in Spain.
By sex, there are more women than men unemployed and they see their unemployment figures reduce more than them. With data from December, there are a total of 1,443,999 unemployed women, some 87,500 less than the previous year (-5.7%), and 964,671 unemployed men, 64,485 less than in December of the previous year (-6.3%).
The Ministry of Yolanda Díaz highlights the number of unemployed people under 25 years of age “marking minimums”, with 176,852 young people registered. “It is the lowest figure in the historical series,” they emphasize in Trabajo.
Temporary employment fell to 12.3%
In 2025, the level of temporary work continued to reduce slightly, after the great collapse that began after the labor reform, which was mainly concentrated in 2022 and 2023. However, in 2024 the figure continued to decline and has done so by a few tenths more in 2025. In December it stood at 12.3% – which are temporary employees compared to the total – when at the end of 2024 was 12.8%.
“Temporary employment has been reduced to levels of 12.3% in the General Social Security Regime compared to 30.2% in 2018,” highlights the Ministry of Social Security. This improvement is even more notable among workers under 30 years of age, “who have a temporary employment rate of 20.7% when seven years ago they had a rate higher than 46.4%,” they emphasize in the department of Saiz.
In December, the total number of registered contracts reached 1.2 million. Of these, 458,808 employment contracts were indefinite, 37% of the total.
Source: www.eldiario.es
