He assures that 2024 will be a year in which the slowdown in the economy will be noticed

MADRID, 26 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The National Federation of Self-Employed Workers Associations (ATA) predicts that in 2024 employment will move between 1.1% and 1.2%, which would mean between about 190,000 and 230,000 more jobs until the unemployment rate is reduced. unemployment at just under 12%, “positive” data, but much “slower” than it should be.

“Employment data throughout 2023 reflect a significant slowdown in the pace of growth. Employment has been destroyed in the last months of the year, self-employed workers continue to decline in sectors as important as commerce, hospitality, industry and agriculture, and reduction in unemployment is the lowest that has occurred in the last 3 years,” said the president of ATA, Lorenzo Amor.

Thus, the president of ATA predicts that 2024 will be a “difficult” year for the self-employed and where the “brake on the economy” will be noticeable, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that will grow below 1.5% next year , according to the forecasts of the self-employed.

However, he highlights that the forecasts for 2024 can vary greatly depending on whether or not the Government decides to completely withdraw the anti-inflationary measures and points out that we will have to wait a few months to be able to correctly estimate inflation in Spain, with a range that can fluctuate. between 2.5% and 3.5% depending on many of the decisions that have not yet been made.

Therefore, for ATA, with the current situation, expenses will continue to increase and it will be difficult to compensate them without raising prices and without a definitive brake being noticed in the economy, stagnating the employment growth data, which although “positive” will be Much slower than it should be.

Likewise, “uncertainty” will mark 2024, and it will be a year where most of the self-employed do not believe that they will be able to expand their workforce and some even confess that if they continue like this they will have to reduce their workforce, a symptom that the “stamina of the self-employed is very on the limit”, according to data from the ‘ATA Barometer’.