UGT has warned this Tuesday of the increase in unemployment in the third quarter of the year, despite the Active Population Survey (EPA) marking a new historical maximum of employment. In light of this contrast, the union demands to raise the quality of employment, strengthen active policies, and ensure the recovery of the purchasing power of wages.
According to the EPA, the number of employed people grew by 73,600 compared to the previous quarter, reaching 22,852,600 workers, the highest level in the entire series. However, unemployment increased by 95,900 people and the unemployment rate stood at 10.2%, three tenths above the previous quarter.
The union organization emphasizes that this advance in employment is the most moderate in absolute terms for a third quarter since 2019, except in 2022, when 69,400 jobs were created. In year-on-year comparison, employment grew by 465,500 people, a 2.1%, while the number of unemployed decreased by 21,900, a 0.8% less.
UGT also draws attention to the persistence of long-term unemployment: 847,900 people have been looking for work for more than a year, which represents 32.7% of the total unemployed.
Regarding the quality of employment, the union highlights that the temporary employment rate reached 15.4%, three tenths more than in the previous quarter, although still well below the 26.2% recorded in the third quarter of 2021, before the labor reform.
Likewise, the part-time rate stood at 12.9%. Among the 1,287,100 part-time workers, 43.7% are in this situation because they cannot find full-time employment. "The insufficiency of hours worked is one of the main sources of labor poverty in our country," the organization has warned.
In this scenario, UGT demands to strengthen active employment policies and increase the resources of public employment services, with the aim of improving labor insertion and working conditions.
In the salary area, the union demands to immediately open negotiations for the VI Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) for the period 2026-2028. Its proposal includes general salary increases of 4% per year and additional bonuses for salaries further from the average. UGT denounces that the employer organizations CEOE and Cepyme have not yet responded to their request to start the conversations.
The organization also insists on the urgency of facilitating access to housing, understanding that its high cost hinders the emancipation of young people and complicates the coverage of vacancies in numerous territories.
"Housing absorbs an unacceptable part of family budgets, prevents the emancipation of youth, and makes it impossible, in many territories, to cover vacant jobs, because working people cannot afford accommodation," it has pointed out.
UGT frames all these demands in the call for a general strike on the upcoming November 11, with which it aims to "guarantee the real recovery of the purchasing power of wages and access to affordable housing."