Only 37% of the population works, according to Leticia Poole

Only 37% of the population works: the figure igniting economic debate

How many people truly work in Spain? The short answer, given by Doctor of Economic Sciences Leticia Poole in an interview with COPE, is that barely 37% of the population has a job. "It's madness: we are a country with too many people supported by too few," she summarized. The long answer requires a calculator and deciding who to count: children? retirees? public employees? That's where all the noise begins.

On paper, the numbers add up. 22.3 million employed, unemployment around 10%, and an active population of about 24 million, out of 48.6 million inhabitants, result in that 37% figure. What's debatable isn't the arithmetic. What's debatable is what we do with it.

What exactly does the 37% employment rate measure

The ratio is calculated on the total population, not the active population. This includes minors and pensioners in the denominator, groups that have never contributed or are not expected to. Viewed this way, the Spanish figure ceases to be an anomaly: according to a calculation circulating in the debate, in the United States there are 170 million active people out of a total of 347 million, a similar proportion. The calculation isn't a Spanish rarity; it's one way of looking at it.

And like any way of looking, it hides what it leaves out: the composition. Of those 22.3 million employed, about 3.6 million work for the public sector. The result is that the private sector is sustained by 18.7 million people, approximately 38% of the total, according to the breakdown repeatedly cited.

The public sector: how much it sustains and how much it is sustained by

This is where the analysis breaks down. One current of thought argues that civil servants and public employees contribute, pay taxes, and provide essential services, so excluding them from the count is a trick. The mockery often used to describe the opposite is that of Aristotle's unmoved mover: something that moves without being moved.

The other current responds that their payroll comes from the same taxpayer they claim to serve, and that adding them to the list of supporters is counting the same euro twice. With this adjustment, some circulating calculations place the percentage of private workers below 5%. Others put it around 15% or 20%. No one has published the complete accounting.

Long-term absences and positions no one fills

An example is enough to understand why this issue ignites so many people. A team of six people, four with temporary contracts and two with permanent positions. Of the two permanent staff, both are on leave: one absence is approaching two years, and the second person took up the post, did a week's training, and never returned. The position is still counted as occupied.

Whether this case is representative or exceptional is precisely what no one demonstrates. At the same time, the narrative that there are plenty of workers clashes with another everyday fact: there are people looking for work who can't find it. And those who do find it sometimes find it poorly paid, with meager contributions that inflate statistics without supporting much.

Unemployment, low wages, and the dependency ratio

Outside Spain, the pattern repeats in a different guise. In Germany, the gap between people employed and people contributing is around nine million, according to the example cited: those in subsidized employment or social assistance programs inflate a false full employment. In Spain, the equivalent nuance is unwanted short working hours and contracts that exist on paper but not on payroll.

Demographics don't help either. Birth rates continue to fall, and migratory replacement doesn't compensate: according to a statement repeated in the debate, the population arriving from Latin America has fewer children than the native population, and in countries with more aid than Spain, the trend is the same. One part of the analysis suggests that the arrival of foreign population worsens the ratio between recipients and contributors; countered by the argument that without these workers, entire sectors—care, agriculture, hospitality—would collapse.

Debt, global reserve, and the comparison that doesn't hold

The parallel with the United States fails on another front. A country that issues the world's reserve currency, with energy and military might, can afford to refinance its debt almost at no cost. Spain owes money in a currency it doesn't control. It's the difference between owing money to the corner bank and owing it to someone with a gun, according to the analogy used to explain it.

And then there's productivity. If 37% keeps the show running, someone will say that Spanish performance is world-record. That's the joke, and also the warning: the room for improvement is exactly what's already being squeezed.

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If the calculation is refined and payrolls funded by the public budget are excluded, some argue that there isn't even a 5% of purely private workers left. Others will respond that this only shows that the State is the country's largest employer, not that there are too many people. While the debate rages over who supports whom, everyone's payroll still comes from the same place.