He is no longer looking for a job, although he needs it, but after many failed interviews he assumes that he will never find a job. His work of a few hours a week is involuntary – he craves a full day – and barely allows him to make ends meet but he is not considered unemployed. These examples are outside the official statistics, but they are part of an increasingly visible block of citizens who, according to the report «Challenges of active policies in Spain» from the Autonomous University of Madrid and UGTexplain why real unemployment in Spain was not 10.9% in 2024 between 15 and 74 years old, but 19.3%. Last year, behind the 2.77 million unemployed in official statistics, a total of 4.9 million unemployed were hidden.
The official figures of the INE (EPA) and SEPE They have been showing a reduction in unemployment for years, which tends to be interpreted as an indisputable success of the labor market. However, the report Challenges of active policies in Spain – prepared by the UAM and UGT – puts a name to what many economists have been warning about: there is unemployment that is not counted, but it exists. It is the so-called expanded unemployment rate, an indicator that includes three elements that traditional statistics leave out: official unemployment (people without work who are actively looking for work), involuntary underemployment (those who work fewer hours than they want and could work) and potential inactivity (people who would like to work, but do not look for work due to discouragement or because they cannot join immediately).
The sum of these three groups configures the true dimension of the underutilization of labor in Spain. And the result is overwhelming: while the EPA indicates 11.3% unemployment in 2024 for those aged 16, Eurostat 11.4% between 15 and 64 years old, and the UGT and Autonomous study 10.9% between 15 and 74 years old, The expanded unemployment rate in this last age group amounts to 19.3%. And in fact, if it did not take into account the population already of retirement age, that rate would be even higher. In figures, in 2024, to the 2.7 million unemployed people, we would have to add 755,000 inactive people, not looking for various reasons, but available; 264,000 in this case seeking but not immediately available; and 1.12 million underemployed, which gives a total of 4.9 million people within the expanded concept of unemployment, of which 2.8 million are women (58.6%).
One in five active or potentially active people was out of the labor market or trapped in precarious jobs last year.
In other words: one in five active or potentially active people was out of the labor market or trapped in precarious jobs last year. That a fifth of the population is in this “gray zone” has profound consequences: more working poverty, reduced consumption, interrupted career paths, greater dependence on aid and subsidies and deterioration in mental health. “Every person affected by this discouragement effect or who resigns themselves to underemployment is a collective failure of the economic system and also of the political system,” summarized the Head of Territorial Policy at UGT, Eduardo Magaldiduring the presentation of the report, while requesting that active employment policies incorporate the concept of expanded unemployment.
The “victims”
The profile of these hidden unemployed is clear: young people who come up against the precariousness of the labor market; women, affected to a greater extent by involuntary activity by assuming a greater care burden as well as by unwanted partial employment; and people over 50 who have greater difficulty returning to work. While men face increased unemployment of 15.3%, women have a percentage of 23.7%. For its part, the expanded unemployment rate for young people – between 15 and 29 years old – in 2024 was 33.1% (compared to the original 21.9%).
Spain is, according to the European comparison of the study itself, one of the countries where the differences between official unemployment and the expanded rate are widening. While the EU-27 presents a gap of six points (from 5.7% to 11.7%), in Spain the jump is almost eight. “We cannot stop at reading that Spain has reduced unemployment in the last decade, but we must keep in mind that we continue to double the average rate and we have high structural unemployment,” said the deputy secretary general of UGT, Lola Navarro. “The most worrying thing about this strike is its composition: youth, long-term, female, low-skilled and with strong territorial differences,” he added.
The worst in Europe
The study forces us to look beyond the official unemployment figures, but these in themselves are embarrassing. In 2024, Spain would double the general unemployment rate of the EU. In 2025, this gap remains almost unchanged. According to Eurostat, the average unemployment in the EU was 6% while Spain recorded the worst figure in the Twenty-seven with 10.5%, the only country in double digits. In the case of youth unemployment, the situation is no better. Last year, youth unemployment in Spain stood at 20.2%, almost 10 points above the community average (11.4%). In September of this year, youth unemployment in the EU stood at 14.8% and 25% in the case of Spain, the highest rate in the EU. In addition, Spain was the second country with the highest long-term unemployment rate in 2024 (3.8% of the workforce between 15 and 64 years old). Of the total, 30% of the long-term unemployed – between one and two years looking for work – and half of the very long-term unemployed – looking for work for more than two years – were over 50 years old, rates that have grown due to the greater weight of the elderly unemployed in the last decade.
Take into account hidden unemployment to better tackle it
►The study reaches a clear conclusion: Spain must incorporate the expanded rate as an official indicator in active employment policies. The reason is obvious: if it is not measured, it is not intervened. Much of the underemployment and discouraged inactivity are not considered in the strategies of the SEPE or the autonomous communities since they are not reflected in registered unemployment or in the EPA. According to the UAM and UGT report, for every additional million spent on Active Employment Policies, unemployment is reduced by 1,056 people, by 280 young unemployed, 906 long-term unemployed, 691 very long-term unemployed and 1,309 from the expanded unemployment group.