Oviedo (EFE).- Asturias reduced the number of unemployed registered in employment offices in March by 1,630 people, in a month in which the community recorded the creation of 3,900 jobs, according to data published this Tuesday by the ministries of Work and Social Economy and Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations.
With this, unemployment fell in the Principality by 2.57 percent compared to February, almost one point more than the national average and the seventh largest drop in relative terms among the autonomous communities, reaching the number of registered unemployed at 61,696. .
For its part, the gain of 3,900 members of Social Security represents a rise in employment of 1.06 percent, similar to the national average (1.02%), up to 372,565 workers.
In relation to March last year, unemployment has been reduced in Asturias by 4,341 people, 6.57 percent, about one and a half points less than the national average, while affiliation has increased by 3,785 workers, 1, 03 percent, the most moderate improvement in the country.
Unemployment falls in all sectors
Unemployment fell in March in all sectors and did so more sharply in industry and agriculture, 3.7 percent in both cases.
Specifically, unemployment fell by 166 people in industry, to 4,359, and by 43 in agriculture, to 1,112.
In addition, unemployment fell 3.5 percent in construction, with 164 fewer unemployed, to 4,476, and 2.9 percent in the services sector, with 1,374 fewer unemployed, to 45,393.
Faced with this, unemployment among the group without previous employment, closely linked to young people, rose by 117 people, up to 6,356 unemployed.
The drop in unemployment benefited women somewhat more, with a decrease of 855 unemployed, to 36,054, while among men it fell by 775, to 25,642.
Four out of ten contracts, permanent
In March, 19,797 work contracts were signed in Asturias, which represents an increase of 27.5 percent compared to February, although a decrease of 16.9 percent in interannual terms.
Of this total, 7,569 contracts, 38.2 percent, were permanent, and 12,228, temporary.
Permanent hiring grew 34.1 percent compared to February and 21.3 percent compared to March last year, while temporary employment increased 23.8 percent per month, but fell 30.4 percent in YoY rate.
In the first quarter, 52,488 contracts have been signed in Asturias, of which 63.91 percent were temporary and 36.09 percent, indefinite, a rate that before the entry into force of the labor reform, at the end of 2021 It barely reached 10 percent.
Unions call for measures for women and youth
The Asturian Federation of Employers (FADE) has considered that the first quarter has closed with “a more favorable employment behavior than expected a few months ago”, but the unions have warned that Asturias continues to have an unemployment problem that especially affects to women and youth.
The secretary of Trade Union Policy of the UGT of Asturias, Mar Celemín, has stressed the need to reinforce active employment policies aimed at women, who account for 58 percent of unemployment, and young people, who “do not find opportunities in the labor market ”.
In a similar line, the head of Employment of the CCOO of Asturias, Severino Menéndez, has expressed his concern about the group of unemployed without previous employment, who represent 10% of the pair, for whom he has demanded “special and urgent actions, to manage to incorporate them into a labor market that is currently excluding them and leading them to marginality”.
From the Principality’s Public Employment Service (Sepepa), its managing director, Pilar Varela, has assessed that Asturias has chained 24 consecutive months of year-on-year declines in unemployment and that the community now has 13,428 fewer unemployed people and 11,012 jobs more than four years, although he has advocated “not falling into triumphalism” and continuing to work on active employment policies.
Employment grows in Spain by 1%
In the country as a whole, Social Security gained an average of 206,410 affiliates in March (+1.02%) in the largest increase for this month in the entire historical series; while unemployment has fallen by 48,755 people, 1.67 percent, to 2.86 million, the lowest figure for a March since 2008.
This advance of the occupation leaves the total number of average affiliates at 20,376,552, the highest in the series, which began to be published in those average numbers in 2001.
Regarding the number of people registered in the offices of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), the Ministry of Labor highlights that the drop in unemployment in March, a month in which hiring begins to be activated in the face of the strongest months of the tourist season, is “especially positive” in an economic context of uncertainty. EFE