The reports of the National Institute of Statistics classify as cities the municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. In the Canary Islands, there are six: Arrecife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Telde, Santa Lucía de Tirajana, San Cristóbal de La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Among all of them, the capital of Lanzarote, with 65,000 residents, is the one that registers the lowest unemployment rate, which stood at 12.36% at the end of 2023, more than three points from the second Canary Island city with the least unemployment. This is Santa Lucía de Tirajana, which, with 76,500 residents, has an unemployment rate of 15.58%.
In reality, the unemployment rate in Arrecife is more comparable to cities in the peninsula such as Alcalá de Henares (12.29%) or Fuenlabrada (12.73%) than to other cities in the archipelago.
The third city in the archipelago with the least unemployment, although at a great distance, is Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which with more than 380,000 inhabitants has an unemployment rate of 18.11%. Very close is the unemployment rate in Telde, which, with 104,000 inhabitants, reached 18.34% at the end of 2023.
The cities of the western province of the Canary Islands have even higher figures. San Cristóbal de La Laguna, with 160,000 residents, has an unemployment rate of 19.13%, while Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with 209,000 inhabitants, is the Canary Island city with the highest unemployment rate, specifically, 20.79% of people looking for employment in the city fail to find it.