Strikes in Spain increased by 11.5% in 2012, according to figures released this week by the Employment Ministry, and the number of workers who downed tools increased by 31%, with 323,871 workers deciding to withdraw their labour through direct industrial action.
The number of strikes might seem staggering, but it has now bucked the trend of a decrease in the last few years. In 2009, there were 1,001 official strikes, which dropped to 984 in 2010, before reaching the low point of 777 in 2011, then climbing in 2012 to 878, not including the general strike of March 29th, or the teacher´s strike of May 22nd.
Perhaps not surprising is the fact that Madrid was the top of the pops for strikes, with 101,000 workers downing tools, totalling a staggering 329,200 working days lost. With the troubles in the mining sector, Asturias came in second place, with 55,500 workers going on strike, costing 220,800 working days.
Across the Valencia community, there were just 6,600 striking workers, who clocked up a total of 27,800 lost days, although that is still considerably higher than the best behaved region, La Rioja, with just 100 workers striking to the cost of 200 days loss, the same number of strikers as the Balearics, although the workers on the archipelago took 800 days off.
Workers from Madrid may well feel more comfortable in their jobs though, as a study by Human Resources consultant, Aon Hewitt, reveals that Madrid ranks at number 48 in the world when it comes to security of skilled workers, albeit that position is a 2 point drop on the previous year. Still ranking higher than Shanghai and Rome, Madrid is just one place ahead of Barcelona, meaning Spain holds two of the top 50 locations on the planet.
New York, Singapore, Toronto, London and Montreal are the top five places for job security on the list, with New York seemingly gaining favour, “because the demographic risk is the second lowest due to the high population of working age and the high labour productivity”.
But, as all scales must have an average, they must also have a black list, with Luanda (Angola), Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Sanaa (Yemen) and Damascus (Syria) representing the cities that pose the highest risk for workers of the 138 analyzed.
Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/38455/
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