Self-employment declines by 1.8% and marks three consecutive quarters of decline, while salaried workers increase by 1.1%. The data comes from the Quarterly Observatory of Fedea and BBVA Research.
According to empleojob.es, self-employment fell by 1.8% in the second quarter of 2026, its third consecutive drop. In the same period, salaried employment increased by 1.1%.
The data is part of the Quarterly Labour Market Observatory, prepared by Fedea and BBVA Research and published on 17 September. The report indicates that employment growth is concentrated in wage employment, especially in permanent contracts, which rose by 1.3%. Temporary contracts grew by 0.2%.
Since the end of 2019, permanent employment has increased by 33.2%, while self-employment has only risen by 2.2%. During the same period, temporary employment has decreased by 33%.
The affiliation figures provide another perspective. According to the Ministry of Inclusion, in September Spain had 70,353 more self-employed workers than a year earlier, a figure released on 2 October. The system reached an average of 22,437,553 affiliates that month. The affiliation data and the quarterly employment figures come from different statistics, so they are not directly comparable.
The growth of the foreign population significantly impacts employment. According to the report by Fedea and BBVA Research, nearly 70% of the jobs created since the end of 2019 correspond to foreign individuals. According to the Ministry of Inclusion, in September there were 3,635,979 foreign affiliates, about 547,637 more than a year earlier, and 546,000 foreign self-employed workers, an increase of 11.3%. This last figure was released on 14 October.
Researchers estimate that, between April and August, the extraordinary regularisation process raised foreign affiliation by about 400,000 people. Without this process, the increase would have been about 211,000 fewer affiliations.
You may also like
