The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published this Thursday an analysis of the 38 countries that make up the club. One of the figures that the organization highlights is that 13 of these countries report a record in their employment rate, that is, in the proportion of workers compared to the total number of people of working age (from 15 to 64 years, according to the ) . Spain is among them, with 66.3%, a very high level in historical terms: the figure even exceeds the proportion reached at the time of lowest unemployment in the 20th century, in 2007 during the real estate boom. The analysis is worse compared to other countries, since Spain remains below the OECD average (70.3%) and the European Union average (70.9%). In addition, it registers the highest unemployment rate.
The first Spanish data is from 1999, when in Spain the employment rate was limited to 52.9%. This figure grew continuously in subsequent years, until reaching a peak in the second quarter of 2007. Then the employment rate rose to 65.9%, almost two-thirds of the workforce. The percentage plummeted with the bursting of the brick bubble and, up to 54.6% in the second quarter of 2013. At that time, according to the INE, Spain reached its historical record of unemployed, with six million people unemployed . The employment rate grew again in subsequent years, until taking another drop during the pandemic, but it immediately rebounded. In the second quarter of last year it surpassed the record that was reached in 2007 and in the latest data, that of the third quarter of 2024, it reaches 66.3%.
The Spanish data, however, is in the rear car. Of the 38 countries that make up the OECD, only Chile (64.1%), Mexico (63.9%), Colombia (63.2%), Greece (63.1%), Italy (62.5%), Costa Rica (62.3%) and Turkey (55.2%) present worse data than the Spanish. Furthermore, it is very far from the states with the best figures: they are New Zealand (78.4%), Japan (79.5%), Switzerland (80.3%), the Netherlands (82.35) and Iceland (86.4). %). Another, more positive reading is that Spain is among the countries in which this record improves the most: it grew six tenths of a percentage from 2023 to 2024, exceeding the average increase of the European Union (0.5) and the OECD (0. 2).
Like Spain, 12 other countries reached the highest employment rate since records began in the third quarter of 2024. The majority are European, such as Belgium, France, Germany or Italy, accompanied by Japan or South Korea. This is due to a global trend, whereby they narrow in the working years and grow in the retirement years. Another thermometer of this phenomenon is the difficulty of finding labor in some developed countries.
“The OECD employment rate and labor force participation rate (activity rate) remained broadly stable at 70.3% and 74% during the third quarter of 2024, marking the highest levels recorded since inception.” of the series in 2005 and 2008, respectively,” reflects the OECD in a press release. “The employment rate exceeded the OECD average of 70.3% in approximately two-thirds of OECD countries in the third quarter of 2024, with the notable exceptions of Italy and France among the G7 countries,” underlines the body.
There is another way to measure the employment rate, taking into account all people who can work, so that the elderly are not excluded. This is what the National Statistics Institute does. By including those aged 65 or over in the calculation, Spain reports an even lower employment rate, according to the OECD: it is 51.5%, with only three countries behind. They are Türkiye (49.5%), Greece (47.3%) and Italy (46.8%). The Spanish record is far from the average of the Twenty-Seven (54.7%), the OECD (58.1%) and the countries with higher proportions, such as Iceland (74.5%).
Eurostat data has been pointing to Spain as one of the countries in which the fewest people of retirement age work: 5% make employment and pension compatible, far from the EU average of 13%. This variable—which measures the employment situation of retirees in the six months after receiving their first benefit—is relevant to the , in a context of aging and low birth rates. The Government, especially since the last legislature, has been approving incentives to delay retirement or to stop. This legislative impulse is activating these modalities, but they have not yet managed to match Spain with the European scenario.
Another negative side for Spain in the OECD data is unemployment. It is the only country with a double-digit unemployment rate, 11.3%, well above the OECD average (4.9%) and the European Union (5.9%).
