In 2020, the Algarve lived «permanently in a low season» as far as employment is concerned. The pandemic ended what was a “very positive economic cycle” and “thrown” thousands of workers, mainly from the tourism sector, to the Job Centres.
Even so, Madalena Feu, regional delegate in the Algarve of the Employment and Vocational Training Institute (IEFP), in an interview with Sul Informação, says that there were some positive signs throughout the year and does not expect the monthly values of registered unemployment to reach 2013 values.
In 2020, considers the responsible, "we live permanently in a low season, with a period, during the summer, of improvement". An improvement that, even so, had unemployment numbers “much higher than in homologous terms”.
Madalena Feu emphasizes that, in 2018 and 2019, “we were experiencing a very positive economic cycle. In the summer of 2018 and 2019, we had 5% unemployment. In 2019, there was a 5,2% unemployment rate, according to INE data. Therefore, we were experiencing some slack and we were expecting a year 2020, from an economic point of view, very dynamic and very positive».
In January of last year, “we started working to integrate people. Job offers soon began to be worked on and arrived at our services. At that time, we had numbers similar to what we had in 2019. In January 2019, we had 20748 unemployed and, in 2020, we had 20815, with a difference of 0,3%. In February, unemployment fell compared to January, to 19188 subscribers. We were also with a variation of tenths 0,9% compared to 2019, but down 12,8% compared to January. Therefore, January and February were months within what is our normality».
Then came the pandemic and, «at that moment, all the unemployed who, as a rule, would work during the summer period, did not go out to the labor market. And those who left in February, during the trial period of the employment contract, became unemployed again and re-registered with the employment services. Therefore, we were faced, in the period from February to March 2020, with a year-on-year unemployment growth of 41,4% and we were not yet at the peak of the pandemic».
The situation worsened and “the flow of unemployed people using employment services in the region increased”, recalls Madalena Feu, who emphasizes that “there was also an increase in the number of registered foreigners, because there was a change in the legislation that allowed it. These people, at an earlier stage, could not register with the employment services, because they did not have the documents effectively legalized, but had been working, had paid their discounts, but did not meet the conditions to register».
As of March, the year-on-year increase in unemployment began to reach very high values in the Algarve, also above the national average.
«From March to April, we were faced with an increase in unemployment of 21,9%, compared to the previous month, but already 123,9% compared to the same period last year. And we were growing in this logic. In May, compared to the same month of the previous year, we grew 200,2% and reached a maximum peak in June, with 231,8%», continues Madalena Feu.
Then came the “relief”. The IEFP regional delegate considers that “we had a first quarter with a very complicated period until April, but the summer went better than what we expected. From May onwards, we started to reduce unemployment compared to previous months. Therefore, in May, the growth of registered unemployed, compared to April, was only 4,9%, despite the fact that, compared to May 2019, we had a growth of 200,2%. In June, we decreased and already had a negative variation compared to the previous month. In July and August, it was also negative and we had a decrease here of about 6 people in employment centers».
From September onwards, unemployment grew again, but, stresses Madalena Feu, «the growth was no longer identical to that of the beginning of the year: it was a much less accentuated growth. In September, compared to the previous month, we grew 4,3%. In October, compared to September, we grew 13%. In November, we grew 20,7% compared to the previous month. Also the growth compared to the same month, were at lower values».
Data for December are still provisional, but a maximum in unemployment registered in 2020 will have been reached. «We ended the month with around 31 unemployed. I think that, in January, this value can be maintained, or increased a little, but it is not my expectation that we will reach the almost 40 thousand registered unemployed that we had in 2013».
By municipalities, Albufeira was the municipality most affected by unemployment in 2020, a fact that is inseparable from the collapse of the tourism sector. “Unemployment has not grown in the same way in all municipalities. But the county where unemployment grew the most due to the pandemic, and which is also the county with the most foreigners, was Albufeira. The municipalities of Loulé and Portimão followed», revealed Madalena Feu.
2021 begins with “a light at the end of the tunnel” called a vaccine, but uncertainty remains about how the job market will respond to a new confinement.
“We started the year 2021 with a setback in the face of the pandemic, with drastic increases in the number of infections and the number of deaths. We all know that we are going to enter a period of confinement and we continue to work with this uncertainty», considered the responsible.
Even so, Madalena Feu believes that, with the vaccination, «from May/June onwards, things can improve».
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