Las horas efectivas trabajadas en el último trimestre de 2023 aumentan un 9,1% desde niveles prepandemia

The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration has published the statistics of effective hours worked and hours quoted in the last quarter of 2023. This information is calculated from the social contributions paid by the companies. The data are published quarterly with a series that starts in January 2019. 
It is a statistic based on administrative data, prepared from the hours quoted and the labor relations per contributor informed to the Social Security. To calculate the effective hours worked, it is necessary to deduct the hours of workers in a situation of ERTE, temporary disability and those who are receiving other benefits (birth and care of the child, risk during natural lactation and risk during pregnancy). These corrected quoted hours of these suspensive situations or, which is the same, hours actually worked in the last quarter of 2023 are 9.1% higher than those of the last quarter of 2019, if the data of each quarter are compared. 
To avoid the volatility that exists between the different quarters and to be able to appreciate the medium-term evolution of the effective hours worked, an index based on the moving average of four quarters is included. This index was 109.1 points in the last quarter of 2023, with 100 points corresponding to the last quarter of 2019, which means that the effective hours worked have experienced an increase of 9.1% compared to the level prior to the pandemic.

 

Source: General Treasury of Social Security (TGSS).

This 9.1% increase in the effective hours worked is mainly due to the combination of the increase in the number of contributors to the General Social Security System in this period (8.4%, which means more than 1.25 million people), and the fact that the effective hours for each contributor are 0.7% higher than the pre-pandemic levels. 
 
As can be seen in the graph below, the evolution shown by this index largely coincides with the data corresponding to the Quarterly Labour Cost Survey (ETCL) of the INE, which shows an increase of 9.5% in the effective hours worked compared to the pre-pandemic period. The enormous coincidence in both level and temporal evolution of two such different statistics provides robustness to the behavior that is deduced from them. On the other hand, as can be seen in the same graph, both statistics provide significantly higher results than those observed in the latest available data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the National Quarterly Accounting (CNTR) statistics, according to which in the fourth quarter of 2023 the effective hours worked would have barely increased by 3.5% and 2.4%, respectively, compared to the level prior to the pandemic. It is also observed that there is a break in the relationship of these series from the end of 2021.

 
(*) Observation: The comparison is restricted to the population area of the ETCL (mainly sections of activity from B to S of the CNAE-09), except for CNTR that includes up to section T.

SOURCES: General Social Security Treasury (TGSS), Quarterly Labour Cost Survey (ETCL), Labour Force Survey (EPA) and National Quarterly Accounting (CNTR).

Explanation of the published statistical report

This quarterly statistical report is based on the TGSS common contingency contribution data, as well as the Statistics on Collective Labour Agreements of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.
The following information appears in the report: 
- In the second column appears the average of the number of contributors of the General System in that quarter.
- In the third column (1) appears the number of hours quoted for all workers of the general regime. In the methodology you can see how this figure is calculated, which combines observed quotation data and imputed data.
- Columns (2), (3) and (4) express the hours paid by workers with ERTE status, in Temporary Incapacity and receiving other benefits. 
- The seventh column (5) reflects the actual hours worked, that is, the hours quoted in each of the quarters, discounted the periods in ERTE, Temporary Incapacity or in other benefits. 
- The last two columns reflect the moving average of four quarters of the effective hours worked and the index constructed from this data, respectively. This operation allows to eliminate the volatility between quarters to calculate the real medium-term evolution of the effective hours.

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