The president of the Confederation of Business Associations of the Balearic Islands (CAEB), Carmen Planas, has valued the figures of affiliation to the Social Security and registered unemployment of May published today, stating that "as expected at the beginning of the year, the creation of employment is moderating progressively in the Balearic Islands , staying below the national average, so it is necessary to implement measures that promote business activity to stimulate job creation.
And it is that the average number of affiliated workers in May (557,469 people) has increased by 2.3% in interannual terms, a rate that, after the punctual rise of April due to the base effect of Holy Week (2,6 %), has dropped two tenths also with respect to the average progress of the first quarter (2.5%). As a result of this trend, the creation of employment in the archipelago has once again been below the national average (2.8%), giving continuity to the trend that has been taking place since the first steps of the year.
From a sectoral point of view, it is worth pointing out that this lower dynamism of employment has become evident in the industrial sphere (2.1% vs 2%, April) and, especially, in services (2% vs 2.4%, April), while the growth of the affiliation of workers has maintained a more sustained pulse in construction (5.2% vs 5.2%, April).
The employment trend is influencing, in this sense, the evolution of registered unemployment. Thus, the number of unemployed registered in the employment offices (38,897 people) has been reduced in May at a rate (-0.4%) lower than that of the previous month (-2%) and that progressively moves away from the national average (-5.3%). However, the unemployment rate has decreased by two tenths compared to the same month of the previous year to reach 6.5% of the active population, which represents one of the smallest incidences of unemployment in the state as a whole (13, 7%).
In light of this evolution, Carmen Planas pointed out that "given the forecast that the growth of the Balearic economy and the creation of employment will continue to moderate progressively during the rest of the year, CAEB is committed to improving productivity as the main way to achieve a more stable and higher quality employment ". Given this objective, the improvement of human capital skills and the integration of new technologies in business processes are key, given that these are the aspects in which the archipelago shows a greater gap with respect to its competitive environment.