The spokesman and deputy of VOX in the General Meeting, Ignacio Blanco, in the turn of ‘Questions to the President’ that took place today in the Plenary of the General Meeting of the Principality asked the following question:
"What urgent measures does your government intend to take to tackle the very serious problem of unemployment in Asturias?"
And then, he performed the following intervention:
Mr President, I have not had bad luck, you have had very good. Let only one piece of information come to save his intervention, although it is a pity that he is satisfied with that, a confirmation of his erratic policy, based on looking for small favorable fortuitous events, while not taking any concrete action to solve the underlying problem and embrace any policy that destroys employment from the nation's socialist government.
In relation to February 2019, unemployment registered in the Principality falls by 3,147 people, 4.14%, the fourth largest decrease in relative terms among the autonomous communities and above the national average decrease of 1.31%. Mr President, I hope you will not be satisfied with this fact, because the joy will last for a short time, but above all it will not last long for Asturians.
Because unemployment is one of those "riders of the economic apocalypse" that is approaching Asturians at full gallop. The interannual unemployment data for February is positive, the one for January is negative, but the inter-monthly one is negative, and we have not finished the quarter yet. Cross your fingers so that March is not as bad as January, because you would get a fourth consecutive quarter of unemployment increase.
Theirs is to grab a burning nail, I will not take away merit, incandescent iron does not affect your hands. I know he doesn't like numbers, but today we're going to try numbers. Asturias has been three months with an increase in membership that is half the national average. The February data is the third worst regional data, and indicates a 0.9% increase in membership when it has been 1.9% nationwide. You and your government is a drag, not a positive factor. There are two months in which the affiliation in Asturias grows less than 1% year-on-year. It is the worst evolution since November 2018.
Moreover, the situation worsens, because if the reduction in interannual unemployment between February 2018 and February 2019 was 3,618 unemployed, between February 2019 and February 2020 it was 3,147.
Today, from the humility of the data, I want to illustrate it about the reality of unemployment in Asturias, because I believe that it is not being taken seriously by hearing you talk about the unemployment data in February. And that outrages many unemployed Asturians, specifically 72,940 Asturians. Among them many women, who are looking for a decent and stable job, such as men, and a great “feminist” like you should worry more about the employment of women and less about going out in the photo.
Asturias has lost 6,624 freelancers in the last 10 years, the second worst data in the country only surpassed by Castilla y León. Asturias is the worst place to work, I don't say it, the economic newspaper Expansión says.
Let's talk about employment. Asturias has 10 quarters with a job evolution worse than the national average. If employment goes wrong, unemployment cannot go well. In fact, Asturias is the only autonomy that chains three quarters with interannual increases in unemployment. We are waiting for the month of March to know if you beat your record and achieve four consecutive quarters. That is, in each and every one of the quarters that you have been President, Mr. Barbón, unemployment increased. It seems that you are going to be the "Rider of the Apocalypse" of unemployment, you reach the Government and the behavior of unemployment in Asturias is only getting worse, do not be comforted with the data of one month.
To put it more clearly: Asturias is the only autonomous community in which unemployment increased, in inter-annual terms, in the last three quarters of 2019. What is worse is that the increase in unemployment in Asturias occurs while in the whole Spain continues to decline: a clear sign that something is being done very badly in the Principality.
Being unemployed is a distressing personal situation and socially implies failure. Within the unemployed there is a group that suffers a true ‘social apartheid’ and is the long-term unemployed: they are those who have been looking for a job for at least two years and cannot find it. Asturias has another record: it is the autonomy with the highest proportion of long-term unemployed. You are also the rider of long-term unemployment.
In Asturias there are 23,300 people who are looking for a job and have not found it for at least two years. That is equivalent to 39.3% of the unemployed, almost half of the unemployed are long-term. In Asturias, if you are unemployed, there is almost a 50% chance that you will never find it again. The national average is 29.9%. In Cantabria, 28.2%. In Galicia, 29.8%. That is another effect of socialist policies, whose most damaging effects always yield to the weakest. Another trophy that you can incorporate into your showcase of failures.
You will tell me that the unemployment rate in Asturias is lower than the national average. It is true. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the data were as follows: 13.8% Spain and 13.1% Asturias. But as you well know, Asturians leave Asturias to look for work because they can't find it here, if they stayed here, we would exceed the unemployment rate in Andalusia.
In addition, the Asturian unemployment rate seems relatively low because it is' doped by the combined effect of two effects: public employment is inflated and many real unemployed do not appear in the EPA data due to the effect of social salary, people who do not enter Statistics
As for those who charge the social salary, we know that one of the requirements to start charging it is to present the Activa Active Job Search ’certificate. But you know, or should know, that this certificate is achieved by signing up on a couple of internet portals, which does not imply an "active" search.
If Asturias had a proportion of employees in the public sector similar to that of Andalusia, the unemployment rate would jump almost three percentage points.
If 10,000 people who collect the social salary begin to actively seek employment, the unemployment rate would increase by about two percentage points.
Combining both effects, the unemployment rate would increase by about five percentage points. That is a prudent measure of the degree of distortion of the unemployment rate in Asturias. Being very moderate, only with this data would Asturias be the fourth autonomous community with the highest unemployment rate. Without taking into account all Asturians seeking employment outside Asturias, which would place us at the head. They have been very skilled at camouflaging it, but it is too obvious.
If these are the results of the Asturian labor market, with the ‘wind in favor’ of a national economy that grew for six years, what will happen now that the effects of the policies of Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias already begin to feel? What measures is planned by the Government of Barbón before the scenario of economic weakening that comes to us?
Thank you so much.
