Spain's Labor Market Evolution: Post-Industrial Challenges
Basic Concepts of the Labor Market
An occupation is defined as a set of skills and qualifications within a specific technical division of labor. This is subjected to a process of commodification, which establishes the labor market. Consequently, the occupational structure is crucial in shaping a fundamental element of our study: work.
Marx and Durkheim on Occupational Structure
- Marx's View: Occupational structure is presented as subject to class.
- Durkheim's View: The class structure is presented as a consequence of the occupational structure.
Evolution of the Spanish Labor Market
This evolution does not fit easily into traditional development models. At first glance, one might think that the sector's development follows a conventional pattern: industry and services grow at the expense of agriculture until this sector's growth stabilizes, transferring the expansion to services. However, deindustrialization in Spain began even before reaching a mature industrial threshold. This deindustrialization was largely due to the disruption caused by the economic crisis of the mid-1970s.
Following a decade-long crisis, an economic recovery occurred during the second half of the 1980s, which was then followed by a devastating recession in 1992-1993. As a result, the trajectory of the Spanish economy in recent decades presents key features related to the modernization of post-industrial societies:
- The problem of unemployment
- Recovery phases
Class Model and Social Stratification in Spain
The Spanish class model for the study of social stratification distinguishes between owners and employees. Their relationship is defined by the wage-earning rate (asalarización) in recent years relative to the total workforce.
After observing the general trend in the Spanish labor market over the last few decades, it is important to analyze the main factors driving these changes:
- De-agrarianization
- Increased wage-earning (asalarización)
- Increasing skills of the workforce and the post-industrial employment structure
- Temporality (temporary employment)
Spain's Post-Industrial Scenario and Unemployment
Today, the Spanish labor market corresponds to a post-industrial society. Spain is categorized with countries like the U.S. and Japan that made the leap from an agrarian sector. This transition had several implications, particularly regarding unemployment. In the Spanish case, the absence of a robust industrialization process meant that when de-agrarianization occurred, it led to a significant problem of unemployment.