The service sector in the Canary Islands generates 85.9% of jobs and in the last 15 years has gained 4.4 points in the overall labor market, a period in which construction, industry, and agriculture have lost weight, employing 13%, 5.1%, and 2% of workers, respectively, according to EPA data.
Employment in construction in the Canary Islands, compared to 2009, has decreased by 2.9%, in industry by 1.1%, and in agriculture by 0.8%.
In Spain as a whole, the service sector has gained relative weight during the last 15 years in all autonomous communities, to a greater extent in Catalonia and Navarra, at the expense of construction, which was greatly affected by the 2008 crisis, industry, and, to a lesser extent, agriculture.
Comparing the latest data on employed persons by sector, those from the EPA for the first quarter of this year, with those from 15 years earlier, when the financial crisis was already clearly noticeable, an increase of 6.2 percentage points in the relative weight of the service sector in the overall labor market is observed for the country as a whole, compared to decreases of 3.6 points in construction, 1.9 in industry, and 0.8 points in agriculture.
Currently, services generate 76.4% of jobs, when in the first quarter of 2009 they accounted for 70.2%, while industry has decreased from 15.2% to 13.3% of the total employed in Spain, construction from 10.3% to 6.7%, and agriculture from 4.4% to 3.6%.
In absolute figures, those from the quarterly national accounts of Spain published this week by the INE, 2.2 million more people are now working in the service sector than in the first quarter of 2009, 550,000 fewer in construction, 323,000 fewer in industry, and 113,000 fewer in agriculture.
By autonomous communities
Employment in the service sector has gained weight in those years in all autonomous communities, more in Catalonia (8.8 points, up to 76.1% of the total), Navarra (8.0), and Murcia (7.3 points) and less in La Rioja (0.9 points), Asturias (2.2), and Aragon (2.4 percentage points).
Currently, services account for 85.9% of the employed in the Canary Islands, 84.7% in Madrid, and 79.6% in the Balearic Islands, in addition to 93.9% in Ceuta and 91.3% in Melilla, while they only account for 61.0% in La Rioja, 65.0% in Navarra, and 68.4% in Aragon.
The industry
The second sector with the highest weight in employment, industry, has only improved relatively in Aragon (0.3 percentage points, to represent 19.7% of the employed in the community) and Asturias (0.2 points, to 15.0%), while it has decreased more in Catalonia (3.7 percentage points), Navarra (3.2), and the Basque Country (3.1 points).
With these data, industry currently generates 25.5% of jobs in Navarra and La Rioja, close to 20% in the Basque Country and Aragon, and between 16 and 17% in Catalonia, Castilla y León, and the Valencian Community, while it is lower in the communities with greater importance of the service sector: 5.1% in the Canary Islands, 6.6% in the Balearic Islands, and 8.9% in Madrid.
Construction and agriculture
Construction, the losing sector of the 2008 crisis in terms of employment, has ceded relevance since then in the overall labor occupation in all communities, with maximums in Castilla-La Mancha (5.1 percentage points less, to 8.8% of the total), Murcia (4.8), and Catalonia (4.7 points).
That has meant that while 15 years ago in ten autonomous regions construction provided more than 10% of all employment in those communities, now only the Balearic Islands exceed this figure (13.0%), and that three important economies are at the bottom of this classification: the Basque Country (5.2%), Catalonia (5.9%), and Madrid (6.1%).
Finally, in only three communities has the agricultural sector gained relative importance in overall employment: La Rioja (2.2 percentage points), Aragon (1.2), and Murcia (0.5 points); while in Extremadura and Cantabria it has lost 2 points.
Right now, agriculture only accounts for more than 10% of the labor market in Murcia (11.5%) and is far from that figure in traditionally agricultural communities such as Extremadura (8.0%), Andalusia (7.5%), and Galicia (6.6%).
The following table shows, by communities and autonomous cities, the percentages of employed persons in each sector in relation to the total of each territory in the first quarter of this year and the variation, in percentage points, between that figure and that of the same period of 2009: