May 1st. Working People's Day
On the occasion of the celebration of May 1st, the Basque Youth Observatory presents some data in relation to the employment and working conditions of the population aged 16 to 29 in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.
In the first quarter of 2024, the activity rate of Basque youth, i.e. the percentage of young people working or in a position to work (which means actively looking for a job in the last four weeks) is 50.6%. This means that the rest are either studying or are not working but are not available for work at the moment.
In the first quarter of 2024, the employment rate of young people aged 16-29 is 44.6 %, which means that almost half of young people are in work. This rate is slightly higher among young men than among young women (46.6 % and 42.6 % respectively), but it is true that the activity rate is also higher among young men (53.1 %) than among young women (48.1 %).
The employment rate has increased slightly and is the highest recorded since 2012, both when compared to quarterly data and to annual averages.
We are going now to introduce some data in relation to the employment situation, taking into account the rates of temporary and part-time employment and the average salaries of young people.
The percentage of 16-29 year-olds with a temporary contract in relation to the total number of salaried young people in their age group was 46.0% in 2023. It should be noted that this rate is the lowest in the 2012-2023 series, but even so, we can still say that almost half of young salaried workers have a temporary contract. In the Autonomous Community og the Basque Country's wage-earning population as a whole, the temporary employment rate was notably lower: 21.4%.
Temporariness affects more young women than young men (50.2% and 42.2% respectively in 2023) and is also more common among employees under 25 (57.2%) than among those aged 25-29 (39.1%).
On the other hand, the percentage of 16-29 year-olds working part-time (less than 30 hours per week) out of all employed people in the same age group was 32.4 % in 2023, which means that one in three young people in employment works part-time. The percentage of young workers with part-time contracts has grown significantly in the last decade and has not fallen below 30 % since 2015. In the general working population of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, the part-time employment rate is not as high as among young people and in 2023 it stood at 16.8%.
The differences between young men and young women are even more pronounced when looking at part-time contracts: in 2023, 42.2% of young women in employment worked fewer hours than the standard working hours in their job compared to 23.8% of young men, and this trend is consistent throughout the series.
Part-time work is also more prevalent among employed 16-24 year olds (47.9%) than among 25-29 year olds (23.5%).
In terms of average monthly net wages (including two pro-rata bonus payments), employees aged 18-29 years earned, on average, €1,226 in 2022 (latest available data). If we compare this salary with that recorded in the period 2015-2021, when the figures for part-time work were similar (and thus avoid the effect of increased part-time work on lower wages), we see that the average salary recorded in 2022 is the highest in the period, although this rise is unlikely to be in line with price rises.
Female employees aged 18 to 29 earn, on average, lower wages than male employees of the same age (1,136 euros and 1,330 euros respectively in 2022). The average difference is therefore almost 200 euros per month. The differences by age are even greater. Employees under the age of 25 earn, on average, 1,009 euros net per month, while those aged 25 to 29 earn 1,363 euros per month. It should be borne in mind, in any case, that women have more part-time jobs than men and that employees under 25 also have more short-time working hours than those aged 25 to 29, and this logically translates into average salaries, regardless of other factors such as the type of work performed, etc.
Those data are directly linked to goal 8 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals: "Decent work and economic growth" and, more specifically, to target 8.5: “By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value”.
