Unemployment

The BBVA Research team has published its unemployment insights for May 2020, noting that the economy appears to have reached bottom and that the recovery is underway.

Although the uncertainty surrounding Catalonia’s economic policy hasn’t had the expected negative impact, the favorable global environment seems to have offset the its negative effect on production and employment. Consequently, BBVA Research has upgraded its 2018 and 2019 GDP growth forecasts for Spain to 2.9% and 2.5% from 2.5% and 2.3% respectively. The report was presented today by Jorge Sicilia, Chief Economist of BBVA Group and Head of BBVA Research, Rafael Doménech, Head of Macroeconomic Analysis of BBVA Research and Miguel Cardoso, Chief Economist Spain and Portugal. Under this scenario, the country is expected to generate about 940,000 jobs over the two year period, causing the country’s unemployment rate to drop below 14%.

LinkedIn is the most used professional network in the world. It currently has more than 500 users, of which 106 million are active monthly users. It can therefore be difficult to stand out from the large number of professionals out there. Like any social network there are some things you should know to get the best out of it.

The development of new technologies as a means to alleviate workloads is part of the day to day running of businesses. Increasingly, robots, artificial intelligence, and computer algorithms are taking over humans in the execution of mechanical tasks. However, many theoreticians are wary of the consequences this development will bring upon the workplace. Darrel M. West discusses the impact of these emerging technologies on society in the book 'The Next Step. Exponential Life', which can be downloaded for free from the BBVA OpenMind project website.

If you ask scientists in the field of artificial intelligence when they expect fiction to become reality and robots’ intelligence to exceed that of humans, they would likely say it’s right around the corner, sometime between 2030 and 2050.

The Observatorio Empresarial contra la Pobreza (Business Observatory to Combat Poverty), with the support of BBVA, has published a report entitled The road to youth employment. What can businesses do. The report addresses the problem of youth unemployment and its consequences from a number of angles.

BBVA Research presented the latest edition of its Spain Economic Outlook report today. Economists’ forecasts for upcoming quarters remain unchanged from the forecasts that were published in the last first quarter report.

BBVA Research maintains Spain’s growth forecast at 2.7% for the 2016-2017 two year period, according to its recent report Spain Economic Outlook. Chief Economist for the BBVA Group and Director of BBVA Research, Jorge Sicilia, and Chief Economist of Developed Economies at BBVA Research Rafael Doménech presented the report today. BBVA Research indicates that “in 2Q16, the economy could see four consecutive quarters of GDP growth around 0.8% (3.2% annualized), which would mean an upward bias for 2016 forecasts.” The growth of the Spanish economy is expected to create approximately one million jobs in two years. However, some strongholds are weakening. This and other foreseen risks mean a downward bias for growth in 2017.

Economist, professor, advisory and director of several organizations related to economic research… Rafael Domenech’s professional life has always been connected to economics, and in parallel, to teaching. Chief Economist of Developed Economies at BBVA Research since 2009, Domenech is also a Professor of Economic Analysis at the University of Valencia. This fact permeates all of his explanations, which those who attend his presentations describe as “very educational”.

Born in Sao Paulo while his parents spent a five year period there, he is Brazilian by birth but Valencian by adoption and believes that there is a great need for education in economics. He is the author of numerous articles in prestigious international and national magazine on human capital, growth, economic cycles and monetary and fiscal policies, and recently published a book, 'En busca de la prosperidad (The Search for Prosperity)' that includes measures the Spanish economy should take to increase employment, equity and well-being.

He holds a Master of Science degree from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Economics. He has also worked as a collaborating researcher for the OECD, the European Commission, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Rafael del Pino Foundation, among others.  The author of numerous publications, together with other BBVA Research team members he has prepared an Economic Observatory with proposals to reform the labor market in Spain, which was published today (in Spanish).