The ICT sector in Spain continues to be one of the main drivers of the economy and job creation. Proof of this is that digital service companies continue to breaking records, with a year-on-year increase in its 22% between March 2021 and March 2022.
This is the main conclusion of the last installment of the monthly barometer TIC Monitorprepared jointly by VASS and the Center for Economic Prediction CEPREDE, which also reflects that, discounting the effect of inflation, the average year-on-year growth of ICT activity in the first quarter of 2022 rises, in real terms, to 16% .
In parallel, the good figures of the technology sector in Spain are also reflected in its capacity to create jobs. Thus, the demand for specialized talent it has grown by 7.1% between March 2021 and March 2022, also marking the highest record in the historical series (since 2016). This rate of job creation has risen to an average of 5.6% in the last twelve months, well above the 3.3% increase in the services sector as a whole.
These figures have had an impact on a positive evolution of the average turnover per employee, which was seriously damaged by the COVID-19 crisis, and which is now growing at a rate of 9.6% in the last twelve months.
“These numbers demonstrate the strength of one of the most dynamic sectors of the national economy that seems, for the moment, immune to the unknowns that are taking over this increasingly complicated 2022”, says Antonio Rueda, director of VASS Research and head of TIC Monitor. In addition, Rueda also highlights that “The pulse of the digital services sector in Spain is more remarkable considering that the GDP of the first quarter of 2022 was in Spain almost 3.5% below the pre-pandemic GDP, while in the average of the euro area this has already been overcome”.
Short term expectations
The good state of health of the ICT services sector in Spain is also reflected in short-term billing expectations. On a -100/+100 scale, they remain positive with +40.8 points, although with a slight decrease compared to the previous installment. This would be equivalent to saying that the 70.6% of Spanish ICT entrepreneurs expect a activity growth for the next three months. Some predictions that, in Spain, for the eighth consecutive month, once again improve the community average, which takes a level of +27.7.
The expectations of creation of specialized employment in Spain improve for the third consecutive month, compared to the slight cooling registered in the whole of the European Union. Thus, 70.4% of Spanish ICT companies expect to create net employment in the period between June and August.
“Where will be the limit in the generation of new jobs linked to this space of activity? For the time being, and taking into account that the ICT services sector has become a real engine of the economy and employability in Spain, this frontier will be found in our ability to generate talent with the right skills”, sentence Antonio Rueda.
