A study on the evolution of the construction sector carried out by the human resources firm, Randstad, shows how the creation of employment in this sector continues to grow, surpassing 1.3 million employees in 2019. This figures means a 5% growth in regards to 2018 and is the highest since 2011.

The study used data from the Survey of the Active Population of the National Institute of Statistics starting from 2008. The most positive data taken from the study is the growing employment tendency shown by the construction sector, which employs 1,276,400 people, 6.4% of the total amount of people employed in Spain. By autonomous communities, the largest growth is seen in the Balearic Islands (33%), La Rioja (26.5%) and Murcia (24.6%). The autonomous community that registers the worst figures is Catalonia, with a decrease of employment of 13.9%.

Data referring to jobs in the real estate activity are not as positive as those of construction. After a promising start, with more than 160,000 employees, 2019 finished with 148,000 workers in real estate activities. These numbers mean a slowdown in relation to previous years, although they are above the historical average which marks the number of real estate employees around 130,000.

The explanation for the slight decrease of jobs in the real estate sector and the increase in that of construction can be put down to the stop of the second-hand housing market in comparison to the slight upswing in new housing.

The analysis of the study presented by Randstad that include data starting from 2008, allows one to observe how the construction sector was the most harmed by the economic crisis that started in 2008. Of the 2.9 million jobs lost in the country, almost half (1.4 million) worked in the construction sector.