plus...
The city and employment
Barcelona backs the employment
The city of Barcelona is characterized by a robust, dynamic and diversified economic structure. Like the major global urban poles, Barcelona is strongly specialized in the service sector, which employs around 84% of the workers. Likewise, the industry and construction sectors represent 10% and 6% respectively.
There are more than 1,000,000 jobs registered in Barcelona.
With a population of 1.6 million inhabitants, representing 22% of the Catalan population, the city concentrates 32% of the jobs of Catalonia.
Despite the deceleration in the rhythm of economic growth of the local and international economies since the end of 2007, the city has generated new professional opportunities for the citizens. The activity rate is placed above 80% and the employment rate is close to 75%, values significantly higher than those registered in Catalonia, Spain and Europe. Furthermore, compared with these territories, the unemployment rate of Barcelona is much lower. Some years in advance, the city is situated within the goals fixed by the Lisbon Summit for the year 2010:
- the employment rate is close to 75% (the Lisbon goal is 70%)
- the female employment rate is close to 70% (the Lisbon goal is 60%)
- the employment rate for people over 55 is above 55% (the Lisbon goal is 50%)
Barcelona has a solid and diversified economic structure so as to face the change in the economic cycle taking place at a world level. In this context, the City Council of Barcelona, by means of its local development agency Barcelona Activa, boosts innovative proposals for promoting professional opportunities and quality employment, as well as business creation, growth and innovation, powerful motors of employment and economic growth.
In this sense, in May 2008 the City Council of Barcelona signed the Agreement for Quality Employment in Barcelona 2008-2011, with the Generalitat de Catalunya (Regional Government), the UGT and CCOO trade unions and the business organizations Pimec and Foment. This Agreement, based on a shared diagnosis of the economic model for Barcelona, includes 10 strong measures that will lead to better employment opportunities and greater social cohesion for the citizens of Barcelona.
