The lower dependence on the tourism sector is making the Canarian capitals better resist the onslaught of the economic crisis derived from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the data registered last September, with 123,748 members of Social Security, make it the best in the last 10 years. “It is, without a doubt, a figure for optimism,” says the councilor delegate of the Development Society, Alfonso Cabello. According to the data available to the Development Society, “that affiliation figure together with the number of unemployed, which in September was 21,992, allows us to affirm that it is the best combination of the last ten years”.
These more than 123,000 people registered with Social Security represent 43% of all affiliates on the Island. “These are people who work in companies that are located in Santa Cruz, it does not mean that they all work in the capital, but the main headquarters of your company is registered in the municipality, ”says Cabello.
However, the councilor delegate of the Development Society does not forget the threats suffered by the labor market. “Right now we have two very specific threats. One is the temporality, which we share with the rest of the Spanish labor market, thanks to the famous Labor Reform, and the other is the ERTE ”.
“Santa Cruz – continues the mayor – has more than 10,000 people in ERTE. When you look at the unemployment that we currently have, we risk a third of the unemployment, which is hanging there, and we don’t know how much of that ERTE is going to become unemployment ”. Cabello admits that the extension of these files, as the central government has proposed, offering companies training to their employees to improve their skills for this or another job, makes them fear that, when that ends, they will end in dismissals.
In the words of the councilor, “what marks the current labor market situation is the uncertainty that will be hovering over the next six months.” He admits that “we play a lot in the interdepartmental meeting of all the ministries, a meeting that is pending and in which they will discuss how to approach the Christmas period. We cannot forget that a very important part of our business fabric and, therefore, the one that drags the most employment, is made up of the commerce and services sectors ”.
As the Government of the Canary Islands has communicated to the municipalities, it will be in “two or three weeks” when this meeting of all the ministries with the autonomous communities is held to address this Christmas campaign. The mayor insists that “we play a lot in that meeting, it is very important to be able to have the guidelines as soon as possible to face the campaign.”
The data
In the monitoring that the Development Society carries out of the economic recovery, in addition to those mentioned, others are shown that underpin that halo of optimism that seems to run through the capital’s business fabric. The first one that underpins this recovery is the unemployment data, which, although at the beginning of the pandemic crisis it was estimated that it could exceed 30,000 unemployed, it has gradually moved away from that figure, with a pronounced decline in recent months, to stand at around 30,000. below 22,000 unemployed, with levels of 2019.
The other side of the labor market coin, contracts, also show positive figures, with growth of 24.7% in September compared to August, which means reaching 9,000 new contracts. In addition, in light of the temporary nature that the councilor admitted, last month the 1,000 permanent contracts were exceeded. This is the second month in which this situation occurs in the entire pandemic period.
Among the most hired occupations are office, hotel and similar cleaning personnel, with 13.7% of the total, followed by waiters (7.5%) and salespeople in stores and warehouses (6.8%), occupations that accounted for 28% of the capital’s hiring.
Another of the numbers that indicates the good predisposition of the capital’s economy to continue growing are the opening licenses granted in the municipality and that, according to data from the Santa Cruz City Council in the month of August, had grown by 111.1% with compared to the same month of 2020, which in absolute figures is specified in 30 opening licenses. Import of merchandise is also one of the fastest growing indicators, with a 92% increase. Regarding energy consumption, this increased, in this case with data from May, 97%. And already related to the tourism sector, in July, the number of cruise passengers grew 80%, while tourists staying in the capital reached the figure of 762,078.
