Madrid surpasses Catalonia in Social Security associates for the primary time | Economy | EUROtoday

Madrid is already the Spanish autonomous group with essentially the most Social Security associates, in accordance with information just lately distributed by the Government for the month of December. In the Community of Madrid there are 3,882,343 associates registered on this administrative registry, 7,607 greater than in Catalonia, the group that had been main this statistic for the reason that starting of the historic sequence.

In the primary information out there within the registry, from January 1999, Catalonia had 2.54 million members, in comparison with 2.06 within the Community of Madrid. In 1 / 4 of a century the positions have been reversed, even though Catalonia has 1,000,000 extra inhabitants (8.1 million) than the capital’s autonomy (7.1 million). Madrid has additionally surpassed the opposite group with the most important inhabitants, Andalusia, in membership since 2015 (8.7 million).

Specialists have been already anticipating this overtake from Madrid to Catalonia. “It was coming and the difference will widen. Madrid has a dynamic that no other Spanish region can follow,” says Manuel Alejandro Hidalgo, professor of Applied Economics on the Pablo de Olavide University. Arturo Lahera, professor within the Department of Applied Sociology on the Complutense University of Madrid, emphasizes that it has been years since Madrid’s GDP surpassed that of Catalonia.

In the 12 months 2000, the financial system of the Community of Madrid was 7.5% decrease than that of Catalonia. This share decreased 12 months by 12 months till 2012, when Madrid surpassed Catalonia within the worst of the disaster, however in 2014 the Mediterranean area was once more forward. He overtaking occurred once more in 2017, within the midst of the turmoil of the course ofand since then the hole continues to widen. In 2024, Madrid’s GDP would exceed the Catalan GDP by 4.4 factors. The phenomenon can also be appreciated with one other variable: in 2000 the Catalan financial system represented 18.9% of Spain’s whole and Madrid’s 17.5%; In 2024, the previous continues to characterize the same portion of the nationwide pie (19%), however Madrid has taken off to 19.8%

Lahera identifies a number of causes that designate Madrid’s macroeconomic energy. “One of the main ones is the increasingly strong position of Madrid as a globalized city, which is why it concentrates a lot of foreign direct investment, especially since the pandemic. It receives almost a third of the total that enters Spain. And if there is investment, there ends up being job creation,” says this educational, who additionally factors to the financial construction of every area: “Catalonia has a powerful industry that depends a lot on exports to Europe, where several important countries have been stagnant for years. In Madrid the industrial sector is also important, but much less than in Catalonia. The Madrid economy is more diversified.”

Lahera highlights that Madrid beats Catalonia in the export of “high added value services, which is what is changing the production model.” He refers to consulting, technological and also financial activities, “presently in an excellent second; Catalonia can also be sturdy in these areas, however lower than Madrid.” This specialist also highlights the role of another sector with less added value, tourism. He believes that it is a strength for Madrid to be less dependent on this activity than Catalonia, but at the same time he highlights that it is growing more in the capital region. In 2024, Catalonia received 19.9 million tourists, about 600,000 more than before the pandemic, while Madrid went from 7.6 million visitors in 2019 to 8.8 million in 2024. That is, visitors to Catalonia grew by 3% and those from Madrid by 15.5%.

On the other hand, Hidalgo observes a tendency of “accumulation”, that Madrid’s economic snowball grows the further it slides. “Madrid, favored by its capital standing and its geographical location, is absorbing a superb a part of the actions of different areas. There is an simple centripetal power. The extra it grows, the extra actions come as a result of corporations need to be near their rivals, suppliers and potential shoppers,” adds the Pablo de Olavide University professor. Thus, Madrid accumulates more and more job opportunities and this attracts (or forces) more and more people to link their lives to the region. “In Andalusia we’ve got the sensation that we don’t cease exporting human capital to Madrid. The youngsters of my buddies who’ve been educated are going there. These forms of financial dynamics are very highly effective,” adds Hidalgo.

A review of the demographic evolution shows that Madrid and Catalonia have incorporated a similar number of inhabitants since 2021, around 380,000 people. However, it should be noted that the bordering provinces best connected to Madrid are among those that grew the most in the same period: Toledo (+7.5%) and Guadalajara (+6.3%). “There are many workers from Madrid who live in nearby provinces and come every day,” adds Hidalgo, a phenomenon that, in Lahera’s opinion, is getting worse due to the housing crisis: “Madrid concentrates employment, but it is increasingly more expensive to live in Madrid, which forces the population to live far away and have increasingly longer daily commutes.” Data from the National Statistics Institute indicate that 241,900 employees in Madrid live in other provinces, among which Toledo (79,500) and Guadalajara (44,200) stand out.

With them, the total number of employed people working in Madrid in the third quarter rises to 3.68 million, below the 3.88 million affiliates notified by Social Security in January with data from December. Beyond the time lag, this difference is striking because it is common for the number of employed people to exceed the number of Social Security affiliates. This is because the first part of a survey (the Active Population Survey of the INE) and the second is an administrative record, so the first captures irregular employment and affiliation does not. But, at the same time, Social Security does not measure employees one by one, but affiliations, so a single worker with two contracts counts as two affiliates. And Social Security associates employees with a territory based on where they work, while the EPA does so based on where they live.

All these nuances and methodological differences mean that in EPA Catalonia still surpasses Madrid in employed people, while according to the national accounting that is also prepared by the INE, the Castilian community has already surpassed the Mediterranean community in employees in 2022. What all the statistics do share is the trend: Madrid is growing at a faster rate than Catalonia and that is why it overtakes it in more and more records.

The negative side of the Madrid impulse

Lahera warns that Madrid’s economic strength has negative externalities that, in his opinion, administrations should try to mitigate. “Madrid, by consolidating itself as such a powerful international metropolis, attracts many individuals. This drives up the value of housing and places stress on the infrastructure. You more and more need to dwell additional away and public transport to get to your home, if it doesn’t adapt, turns into increasingly more crowded,” comments the professor at the Complutense University. Madrid is the autonomous region in which the most people spend more than an hour commuting to work. They are 37%, with neighboring Toledo (28%) and Guadalajara (26%) also in proportions much higher than the average (22%).

“It’s a paradox,” Lahera continues, “as a result of Madrid has the very best working and wage circumstances, however not so good residing circumstances. Everything is full, costs are larger, there’s extra stress… There is a threat of dying of success.” He believes that remote work, the possible way for many employees to earn Madrid salaries without the problems caused by the accumulation of people in the region, does not have a significant effect, at the moment, on this phenomenon.

Hidalgo defends that the Spanish economy must “take benefit” of Madrid’s good economic moment, but clarifies: “In right now’s world it’s obligatory that you’ve not less than one international main metropolis. That is optimistic and we should exploit it. The drawback is that we permit it to grow to be a black gap that absorbs every part.” That task, in Hidalgo’s opinion, corresponds to politics: “Madrid goes to be our spearhead. We know this and it is rather good. But Spain has 49 million inhabitants and solely seven dwell in Madrid. We should make insurance policies that promote the potential of every space. Everything could be complementary.”

Both he and Lahera believe that the future projection is for Madrid to continue growing, for the gap between the rest of the regions and the capital to widen even further, the autonomy that has increased its weight the most in total Spanish employment in the last decade.