Auto Industry Jobs on Rise in Spain

MADRID – Automakers with presence in Spain created 6,000 new jobs in first-quarter 2014.

“Moreover, fixed contracts (rather than temporary positions) represent 84% of the total,” underlines Mario Armero, executive vice president of ANFAC, the Spanish association of car and truck manufacturers.

Armero spoke recently as part of a seminar on the economic impact of social-security and employment policies at the International University Menendez Pelayo.

Armero says the automotive sector is one of the most active industries in Spain, emphasizing it is among those that have best weathered the recession of the past few years.

“While during the crisis period 2008-2013, the total industry in Spain lost 28% of employment, the automotive industry only reduced it by 8%, and now we are recovering some of the lost jobs,” he says.

Armero credits management and labor unions, plus the industry’s high degree of flexibility, for allowing the automotive sector to weather the economic storm.

“The irregular distribution of working time is an essential element of the flexibility in the Spanish auto plants,” he says.

“However, it is important to continue the reform path,” he adds, detailing the ANFAC labor agenda that calls for the hours bank to carry over into the following year. The hours bank allows manufacturers to bank time that employees are paid for but don’t work during production cutbacks and use it to offset overtime pay later, but the accumulated hours resets to zero with the start of a new year.

ANFAC also is targeting other concessions, including a new entry-level job status that would increase flexibility for automakers.

Armero says the auto industry is propelling Spain’s economic growth, citing the latest data from the National Institute for Statistics (INE in its Spanish acronym) that show the seasonally adjusted Index of Industrial Production (IPI) for manufacturing motor vehicles increased 22.9% from year-ago in May and is up 15.8% year-to-date.

The IPI moving average of the last 12 months increased 13.7%.