Spanish Labour Market Research Articles

The relationship between minimum wage and employment. A synthetic control method approach

Abstract Spain increased its minimum wage (MW) by 22% in 2019. Given the intense debate in the economic literature on the impact of MW increases on the labour market, we conduct an impact assessment of this policy. The synthetic control method will be used to replicate the Spanish labour market by means of a pool of European countries that, in the absence of other reliable measures, simulates the evolution of Spanish employment. This will allow us to identify the causal effect from the increase in the MW. After applying the technique, the increase in the MW is found to have no effect on employment. The results have been subjected to robustness tests such as leave one out or segmentation by gender or age.

El impacto del envejecimiento poblacionalen los flujos de entrada y salida en el mercadode trabajo español

Rationale This article shows that labour market flows – between employment and unemployment and economic inactivity, and between jobs – vary appreciably across age groups. It also explores the impact of population ageing on aggregate labour market flows in Spain. Takeaways •Labour market flows – between employment and unemployment and economic inactivity, and between jobs – testify to greater mobility among younger workers. •Consequently, with all else being equal, the ageing of the employed population in Spain in recent decades appears to have been one of the factors behind the considerable reduction in aggregate flows in the Spanish labour market. •In this setting, as population ageing will foreseeably intensify in the near future, the labour retraining processes already under way as part of firms’ digital and green transitions will likely encounter difficulties.

The varying impact of COVID-19 in the Spanish Labor Market

The varying impact of COVID-19 in the Spanish Labor Market

Master’s degree studies and its impact on vertical and horizontal mismatch in Spain

The goal of this study is to analyse the vertical and horizontal mismatches of graduates in the Spanish labour market focusing on the effect that a master’s degree has in each of these two mismatches. The analysis is based on the data from the Survey on the Labour Insertion of University Graduates carried out by the Spanish Statistical Office in 2019. The main conclusions stress the importance of vertical and horizontal mismatches in the Spanish labour market. The results of the quantitative analysis based on the binary and ordered logit indicate that the master’s degree can reduce the vertical mismatch. Moreover, a wider offer of master’s degrees in some fields such as health could reduce the horizontal mismatch. Eventually, some policy measures to reduce the two mismatches are proposed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse both horizontal and vertical job-education mismatches among Spanish graduates, including those with a Master's degree. Thus, this study is pioneering in assessing the impact of Master's degrees in reducing educational mismatches. In addition, it shows how the likelihood of these mismatches changes with increasing work experience.

Socio-Economic Determinants of the Value Attributed to Human Capital in the Labour Market from the Employee’s Perspective

The aim of this study is to analyse the variables related to knowledge (Talent Management and Training) as a source of human capital in the companies listed in the ranking of the most attractive organisations within the Spanish labour market, published annually by the journal Actualidad Económica (period 2016–2022). We seek to determine the socio-economic variables impacting this assessment, while also exploring the sustainability of the companies in the ranking. Ten hypotheses are thus examined by descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and multiple linear regression models. The results show a significant relationship between permanence, nationality, professional–scientific–technical sector, size, stock market listing, and both variables representative of knowledge in the ranked companies. Focusing on Talent Management, it is noted that permanence in the ranking (>4 years), Anglo-Saxon nationality, being active in the professional, scientific, and technical sector, and being listed on the stock market all play a part. However, Training differs in that size is a factor that positively influences valuation, whereas the international area is irrelevant. Our findings are a key contribution, as there are no previous applied studies that correlate knowledge in the business environment, the valuation of organisations from the employee’s perspective, and several socio-economic variables.

What else? Immigrant–native cohorts entering the labour market under a context of adverse shocks: the great recession and COVID-19

Purpose This paper aims to analyse the short- and long-term effects of entering the Spanish labour market under tough economic conditions on young immigrant–native earnings and employment outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The authors use cohorts, where the entry cohort into the labour market is the unit of observation. As a database, the authors use the continuous sample of working histories covering the period 2007–2021. Then, the authors estimate the model using weighted least squares. Findings The results show that the great recession and COVID-19 led to a blockage at the entrance of the labour market, reducing the number of workers. Additionally, the authors observe an adverse impact in terms of employment and earnings on those entering the labour market. Besides, this effect varies in intensity and persistence for natives and immigrants, as well as by country of birth, age of entry, gender and educational level. Originality/value A contribution to the literature is the analysis of the earnings and employment trajectories of young people entering the Spanish labour market for the first time during an adverse shock, such as the 2008 economic crisis or the COVID-19 crisis, and the possible differences that exist between native and immigrant workers. So, the authors analyse the labour market trajectories of workers covering the most recent years. Likewise, the authors carry out an extensive heterogeneity analysis in which they distinguish workers by educational level, gender, age of entry into the labour market and immigrants by their country of birth. This represents an additional contribution. The use of a cohort approach also contributes to the existing literature.

Young Muslim Perceptions of Their Socio-Educational Inclusion, Religiosity, and Discrimination in Spain: Identifying Risks for Understanding

The Muslim population is one of the religious groups facing the greatest obstacles to full socio-educational inclusion in the West. These are particularly noticeable among young people in areas such as access to employment. The purpose of this study was to find out their own perceptions of their socio-educational inclusion, discrimination, and religiosity. An eminently quantitative methodology was used, with an ad hoc questionnaire administered to a representative sample of a total of 1157 Muslims aged between 18 and 24. The results show that a higher level of religiosity is not related to a lower sense of belonging to Spanish society and should no longer be considered an obstacle to the socio-educational inclusion of young Muslims in Spanish society. On the other hand, their responses show that there is a relationship with greater perceived discrimination, especially in access to employment. In particular, women wearing hijab are substantially vulnerable. Young people, and especially Muslim women, make up a vulnerable population that requires specific school-to-work transition policies to improve their inclusion in the Spanish labour market. This research contributes to an important reflection based on the opinions of young Muslims themselves about supporting better socio-educational inclusion in Spain.

Non-Working Workers. The Spanish Labour Market under Covid-19

We propose in this paper a way of analyzing the evolution of unemployment that considers, besides conventional unemployment rates, unemployment duration, discouraged workers and workers with suspended jobs. Those variables are combined into a synthetic index of non-employment that can be expressed as the product of two components, incidence and severity. We apply this methodology to analyse the evolution of the Spanish labour market during one year with Covid-19. The data show that the behaviour of the job market has been very asymmetric by regions and types of workers. We find that not only incidence and severity are quite heterogeneous across regions and worker types, but also that the evolution between 2019 and 2020 has been different from that corresponding to the financial crisis, with high unemployment regions and older workers suffering less, in terms of incidence and severity.

Language proficiency and immigrants’ employment outcomes in Spain

This paper analyses the impact of Spanish proficiency on first generation immigrants’ employment outcomes, based on the Spanish Labour Force Survey 2014 ad hoc module on “labour market situation of migrants and their immediate descendants”. Proficiency in Spanish enhances immigrants’ employability, particularly for immigrants from non-Spanish-speaking countries, as well as on occupation prestige, measured via ISEI (International Socio-Economic Index). This latter result is often less clear because of occupational segregation in the Spanish labour market amongst workers from different regions of the world, but it turns significant when endogeneity in language skills is taken into account via simultaneous equation models.

Second Latin American migratory boom in Spain: From recovery to COVID-19

Abstract At the end of the second decade of the 21st century, Latin American migration to Spain showed a new quantitative increase in flows of such magnitude that we can speak of the existence of a second migratory boom. In contrast to what happened with the first migration boom at the beginning of the century, when pull factors dominated (mainly due to the expansion of the Spanish labour market), after the economic crisis of 2008 push factors played a more important role. Three processes leading to large-scale emigration are identified in Latin America: high levels of political instability in many Latin American countries such as Venezuela; growing insecurity, especially—but not only—in Central American countries, where it also coincides with increasing difficulties in entering the USA; and the effect of neoliberal policies, with growing tensions in many countries, as would be the case of Argentine migrants. COVID-19 has slowed down these flows and has led to increased numbers of returnees although the previous migratory intensities began to recover at the end of 2021.

Too old to work? A field experiment on age discrimination in the Spanish labor market

Too old to work? A field experiment on age discrimination in the Spanish labor market

The Impact of Population Ageing on Spanish Labour Market Lows

The Impact of Population Ageing on Spanish Labour Market Lows

Weight, attractiveness, and gender when hiring: A field experiment in Spain

Being overweight or obese is associated with lower employment and earnings, possibly arising from employer discrimination. A few studies have used field experiments to show that obese job applicants are, in fact, discriminated against in the hiring process. However, whether overweight job applicants also face employer discrimination is still an open question. To this end, we have designed a correspondence testing experiment in which fictitious applications are sent to real job openings across twelve different occupations in the Spanish labor market. We compare the callback rate for applications with a facial photo of a normal weight person to the one for applications with a photo of the same person manipulated into looking overweight.Applications with a photo of the weight-manipulated male receive significantly fewer callbacks for a job interview compared to normal weight, and this differential treatment is especially pronounced in female dominated occupations. For women, we find the opposite result. Weight-manipulated female applications receive slightly more callbacks, especially in female dominated occupations. Our experimental design allows us to disentangle whether employers act on attractiveness or weight when hiring. For men, the weight manipulation effect is explained by an attractiveness premium, while for women we find evidence of an attractiveness penalty, as well as a weight penalty, in explaining the effect.

Migration and gender inequalities: the incorporation of Latin American immigrant women into the Spanish labor market. A literary review in Spain

En este artículo se realiza una revisión de la literatura académica que analiza la migración y el mercado de trabajo desde una perspectiva de género. Se identifican los principales aportes teóricos que han influenciado en la producción académica en el contexto español para identificar el uso de conceptos y categorías de análisis de la feminización de las migraciones, el mercado de trabajo y el género. Las desigualdades de género a nivel laboral se visualizan en España ya que las mujeres inmigrantes se ocupan principalmente de los ancianos y de los niños, careciendo de oportunidades de ascender a otros trabajos. En estos procesos y análisis de conceptos, hacemos la conexión con estos procesos donde se han reproducido desigualdades de género, clase y etnia. Por esta razón, se observa el gradual interés que ha existido por investigaciones que se centran sobre los colectivos latinoamericanos femeninos y, por supuesto, dentro de ellos a las migrantes bolivianas, que se han insertado en el sector del servicio doméstico en el mercado laboral español aunque aún exista una escasez de estudios que investiguen sobre otros tipos de inserción laboral y movilidad ocupacional como es el caso de las mujeres inmigrantes cualificadas.

El dinamismo reciente del mercado laboral y su impacto sobre el consumo de los trabajadores

RationaleSince the pandemic, the Spanish labour market has shown considerable strength, which has been conducive to a decline in the perceived probability of job loss among workers. This article evaluates the extent to which this may have had a positive impact on consumption (by reducing precautionary saving).Takeaways•The strength of the labour market and the rising share of permanent contracts have helped reduce workers’ perceived probability of job loss. This lowers precautionary saving and raises household spending levels•Uncertainty regarding future labour income has a particularly strong impact on spending on durable goods, and an albeit smaller impact on other non-essential expenditure.•The households whose spending on durables is most responsive to changes in uncertainty about future labour income are those that lack a minimum buffer of liquid assets to withstand a drop in income. This is observed most frequently among low-income and young households.

Labour Supply Responses to Income Tax Changes in Spain

This paper simulates the response of the Spanish labour supply to income tax changes using estimates for the intertemporal elasticity of substitution of leisure, calculated using a pseudo-panel built combining information from the EPA and the ECPF, for the period 1987-1997. According to our findings, income tax reforms have an impact on Spanish labour market, although the effects are quite small, making this mechanism a restricted tool for addressing the country’s existing social security system deficit. Further, labour responses differ for men and women, across workers’ age, as well as between permanent and fixed-term contract workers.

Wage flexibility and employment resilience in the Spanish labour market over the Great Recession

ABSTRACT The Spanish economy is characterized by significant and persistent regional disparities. The Great Recession caused a severe economic downturn, marked by declining wages and rising unemployment, influenced by the internal wage devaluation policies. We investigate the relationship between wage flexibility and regional labour market resilience. We estimate a spatial panel wage curve using microdata from social security records for the period 2002–19 using geographical and time weighted regression techniques. Our findings reveal that regions with higher wage flexibility exhibit higher resilience recovery indices, highlighting the importance of wage flexibility as a short-term adjustment mechanism in response to labour market shocks.

The uneven earnings benefits for men and women of skills acquisition in a virtual university

ABSTRACT Using multivariate linear regression models, this study estimates the relationship between graduates’ self-reported skill improvements from attending a virtual university, the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), and their salaries after obtaining the degree. Our results show that graduates made considerable earnings gains and especially high rates of return to investing in a Master’s degree. Reported earnings by male and female UOC students are 31% and 18% higher than their gender-age counterparts to university graduates in the Spanish labour market. They also benefited from unintended returns in terms of enhanced digital skills, even among graduates who were not enrolled in ICT-related degrees. The improvement they reported in these skills contributed to earnings gains, but only for males. As such, acquiring digital skills for women seems to have little impact on how much they are rewarded in the labour market. This suggests that the types of jobs held by women in Catalonia probably do not specifically reward digital skills. Since UOC graduates are generally older and employed during their studies, the gains made by women may be more related to the fact that they obtained a degree that led to a promotion rather than any specific skills acquired in their studies.

Advertising and public relations degrees: profiles and the glass ceiling in the Spanish labour market

According to data from the Spanish Association of Advertising Agencies, 90% of management positions in communication companies are occupied by men. However, the percentage of women studying communication degrees in Spanish universities, and specifically bachelor’s and master’s degrees in advertising and public relations, is higher than that of male students. This study evaluates the gender perspective taught in advertising and public relations degrees in Spain, to determine whether society demands this female vision of communication, PR, advertising and institutional and corporate activity. Furthermore, it gathers opinions on the role of women in the structure of communication companies. Based on triangulation, the methodology combines a content analysis of university syllabi, a questionnaire for students or graduates, and a panel of experts made up of academics teaching degree courses in advertising and public relations and communication practitioners. The results point to adequate and constantly (r)evolving training, in which skills and curricula meet the professional environment. Factors such as crisis, digital progress, the expansion of new work formats and the new role of the consumer require multidisciplinary teams with transversal skills – where women have a significant role to play.

Undesired consequences of labour market reforms: From temporary to precarious jobs - the case of Spain

One of the peculiarities of the Spanish labour market has been the existence of a high share of temporary employment, a result of the 1984 labour reform which made the use of temporary contracts more flexible. Since 1994, various reforms have sought to increase the use of open-ended contracts and discourage the use of fixed-term contracts. Although these reforms, in particular the 2012 and 2021 reforms, have led to a reduction in the share of temporary workers they have also created other unintended problems, such as a reduction in the duration of fixed-term contracts, the proliferation of part-time contracts and atypical open-ended contracts, and a high share of temporary employment in public sector.