The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) recorded moderated in the second quarter of the year, in which it grew by 0.4% compared to 0.5% in the first quarter. In interannual data, the figure remains at 1.8%, far from the 4.2% that was reached in the first three months of the year and represents the most moderate figure since the pandemic.
But in addition to this comparison, the data of 0.4% contrasts with the growth of up to 0.6% that economists used. In other words: the experts expected a certain rebound and what the National Statistics Institute (INE) says is that there was a slowdown.
The National Accounts data is known the day after the good employment figures that the Active Population Survey (EPA) showed yesterday, and according to which Spain has exceeded the level of 21 million workers for the first time. Precisely this made economists think that the growth figure could be higher. The key to this disparity between growth and the labor market, in any case, probably lies in the hours actually worked, which do not advance at the same rate as employment, and also in the fact that a large part of the employment created is centered in the service sector, with much lower productivity.
And what the INE data suggests is that Spain is already facing the economic moderation that, according to all the forecasts of national and international organizations, the economy as a whole will suffer in the second half of the year. Right now, it seems complicated to reach, for example, the 2.5% growth predicted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Spain.
The foreign sector suffers
Going into the details of the INE figures, what can be seen is that a good part of the moderation is explained by the bad data on exports. Until now, the foreign sector had pulled GDP very strongly, but in the second quarter of the year the figure is even negative and plummeted 4.1% compared to the first three months. The explanation for this situation lies in the complex moment and even the economic contraction that some of Spain's European partners are suffering, and this would fit with the bad job creation data in the industry
On the other hand, the consumption of families has been reactivated after two months in negative figures. It grows by 1.6%, a figure that surprises on the rise and that limits to a certain extent the bad figures for exports. And public spending also offers a positive figure, something common in electoral and pre-electoral contexts such as the second quarter.
From the Government, the First Vice President and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, has assessed very positively that the economy has maintained growth “close to 2% year-on-year despite the complex context of economic slowdown and rate hikes”.