In 2025, the Social Security system added half a million new members for the fourth consecutive year and approached 21.9 million employed people

The labour market has added more than half a million new contributors in the last twelve months (506,451 in the original series), and in the last four years, since the entry into force of the labour reform, it has accumulated more than two million more contributors.

In December, the Social Security system added 19,180 contributors in average terms and is now close to 21.9 million. Specifically, it reached 21,844,414 contributors in the original series, the third best month in history, only surpassed by the months of June and July of the same year. The year-on-year rate was 2.4%.

In seasonally adjusted terms, there were 33,076 more registered contributors in the last month alone, and 507,922 more contributors registering in the last twelve months, reaching a total of 21,871,328, the highest level in the historical series.

"Nine out of every ten workers are permanent. The good performance of the labour market not only means more jobs, but also better quality jobs. Before the labour reform, three out of ten employed people had a temporary contract", said the Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz.

Daily registrations remained well above 21.8 million on most days, topping 21.9 million on 11 December.

The number of women national insurance contributors remains at historically high levels, averaging 10,352,780 in December. This represents 243,578 more women in employment than a year ago. The improvement in women's employment is 13.4% since the year before the labour reform, 3 points higher than that of men.

The number of foreign workers remains at record highs and is approaching 3.1 million members. This group represents 14.1% of the total in December.

Data by age

By age, both youth employment and employment of older workers aged 55 and over has grown by more than 23% since before the labour reform: 26.7% among those under 30, and 23.7% among those aged 55 and over, while the overall growth of the labour market average is 11.8%.

Highly productive sectors

In the last twelve months, almost all the activities of the General Social Security Scheme have increased their enrolment. This increase is particularly significant in Transport and Warehousing (+6.9%), Agriculture, Livestock, Hunting, Forestry and Fishing (+5.4%), Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (+5.3%), Water Supply (+5.1%), Construction (+4.6%), Real Estate Activities (4%), and Education (+3.9%).

Of note is the improvement in high value-added activities, such as Information and Communication (+3.2%) and Professional Scientific and Technical Activities (+2.9%), whose average contribution bases and level of stability are above average.

Within these highly productive activities, Programming, Consultancy and IT (+36.2% since the labour reform) and those related to Headquarters and Business Consultancy (+30.5%) grew the most.

Self-employed

The number of self-employed workers remains at record levels, above 3.4 million (RETA and SETA), with 3,425,767 self-employed workers, 39,002 more than a year ago, representing a growth of 1.2%.

Over 2025, the number of self-employed contributors grew particularly strongly in Information and Communication and Real Estate Activities, with 10.4% and 8.2%, respectively. Other sectors growing strongly are Electricity Supply (+7.6%), Education (+5%), Health Care Activities (+4.8%), and Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities, which added 4.7% of employed people.

The new self-employed in Information and Communication and in Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities account for 24,935, 63.9% of the employment created in this Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers in the last year.

Higher employment growth than neighbouring countries

The Spanish labour market (+10.7%) continues to show a higher growth rate than other European economies (Italy, +6%; France, +2.1%; Germany, +1.4%), based on data from the end of 2021, before the labour reform came into effect.

More stability

Since December 2021, there has been a major transformation in the types of contracts in our labour market: there are 4,179,738 more contributors with permanent contracts, and 2,141,171 fewer contributors with temporary contracts. There are increasingly more stable jobs, with more rights and better salaries. The largest increase is among full-time permanent contracts, with 310,200 more than a year ago. Meanwhile, part-time contracts increased by 83,763.

The weight of temporary workers stands at 12.3%, down from 30.2% in 2018. This improvement is even more remarkable among workers under 30 years of age, who have a temporary employment rate of 20.7%, compared to more than 46.4% seven years ago.

Non official translation