Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recently claimed that his country is in charge of creating half of all new jobs in the eurozone.
Sanchez praised the improvements in Spanish employment figures while speaking to the federal committee of the PSOE party on the centre left.
“Despite all the difficulties we encountered both internally and externally, Spain is moving forward,” Sanchez said. I said it on July 5th. “We are contributing 40% of the growth in the eurozone and half of the new work.”
but, Official numbers I’m drawing another picture from Eurostat. They show that around 157,125,000 people were employed in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 155,330,000 for the same period last year. This constitutes an increase in employment of around 1.8 million people.
The Spanish figures were around 21,599,000 at the beginning of 2025 and 21,145,000 in 2024.
That means an increase in employment of around 454,000 people, accounting for just 25% of the extra jobs in the eurozone, as Sanchez argued.
Euroverify contacted the PSOE, Sánchez’s party, to clarify what the Prime Minister means, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
It is worth noting, however, that Spain is contributing to the newest jobs in any country’s eurozone in the same period, even if this amount does not account for half of them.
Using the same calculations for countries in the eurozone, Spain tops the list at 25.3%, followed by France at 24.5%, followed by Italy at 20.5%.
Germany (11%) and Portugal (7%) conclude the top five eurozone countries creating new jobs.
But what about the overall employment rate?
Nevertheless, despite being the creator of major jobs in the Eurozone, Spain ranks it as having one of the lowest employment rates compared to the total population of the entire European Union, according to the same Eurostat dataset.
It is 66.6% employment, with Greece at 63.9%, Italy at 63% and Romania at 62.9%.
However, these numbers do not represent a big picture, as employment rates usually compare the number of people employed compared to the total working-age population rather than the overall population.
Latest EU data, It is calculated using this methodcited the EU’s employment rate in 2024 was 75.8%.
Spain still ranks as the lowest EU countries based on this calculation, ahead of 71.4%, again ahead of Romania (69.5%), Greece (69.3%) and Italy (67.1%).
The EU countries with the highest employment rates are the Netherlands (83.5%), Malta (83%), the Czech Republic (82.3%), Sweden (81.95%), and Estonia (81.8%).
Despite its low employment rate, it says Spain’s GDP is thriving, surpassing France, Germany and Italy. It is the largest economy in the eurozone.
Recently, it has increased due to increased domestic demand and tourism, including improvements in the services sector, which provides more than two-thirds of Spain’s economic output.
EuroNews Business reports that Spain’s GDP is often a metric related to standard of living. It’s up now That’s Japan’s G7 members.
According to International Monetary Fund data, Japan’s GDP in 2025 was $33,960 (29,000 euros), but in Spain it reached $36,190 (about 30,870,000 euros).
