Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) published its third-quarter 2026 Labour Force Survey (EPA) on 27 October. The labour force expanded by 169,500 people to a record 25.4 million, while unemployment rose by 95,900, or 3.8%, to about 2.59 million. The increase pushed the jobless rate to 10.18%, up from 9.87% in the previous quarter and back above 10%. The quarterly rise in unemployment was the largest summer increase since 2020, while the annual total remained 21,900 lower than a year earlier.
Spain still reached a new employment high. The 73,600 net increase, or 0.3%, brought the total number of people in work to 22,852,600. But the rise was the smallest for this period since 2019. The labour force grew faster than employment, even as the country recorded a new employment high and a higher unemployment rate.
Foreign workers accounted for the net gain: their number in employment rose by 75,400, while the number of employed Spanish nationals, including those with dual nationality, fell by 1,800. Spain is also facing the retirement of thousands of baby-boom workers, making foreign labour more important to the workforce, according to economic bodies cited in the source report. The INE figures showed that foreign nationals supplied the entire net increase in employment during the quarter.
The summer figures also coincide with an extraordinary migrant regularisation process. The report says more than 400,000 people have been registered with Social Security through the process, including workers already counted as employed in the Labour Force Survey. The two measures track different things: the EPA estimates employment and labour-market status through a household survey, while Social Security registrations record affiliation to the system. They are distinct measures and cannot be added together directly.
Over the past year, employment grew by 465,500, an annual rate of 2.1%, two tenths lower than in the previous quarter. Guadalajara recorded a 10% rise. Albacete was up 9%, while Murcia rose 7%; all three were above the national average.
The unemployment increase affected both sexes. The number of men without work rose by 55,700, and the number of women by 40,300. The female unemployment rate reached 11.3%, while the male rate was 9.2%.
Long-term unemployment edged down: 12,400 fewer people had been seeking work for more than a year, leaving 758,400 in that category. Households with all active members unemployed rose by 21,800 during the quarter, to 786,100.
Full-time employment grew by 244,400, while part-time work fell by 170,800. The number of employees increased by 90,000, including 68,000 more on temporary contracts. Over the year, temporary work continued to lose share after the 2021 labour reform. The private-sector temporary employment rate stood at 12.57%, according to figures highlighted by Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz.
Public employment rose by 89,900 in the quarter to more than 3.7 million, while private employment fell by 16,300 to 19.1 million. Over the year, the private sector added 261,400 jobs and the public sector about 204,000. These figures concern employment, not housing; a separate report covered Prague's housing plans.
