On the three i’s of employment and the Spanish labour market

We present an evaluation model that aims at developing a comprehensive index of employment. This index involves what, by analogy, we call the three i’s of employment: Incidence (the employment rate), Intensity (the average number of months actually worked by the employed), and Inequality (a measure of dispersion in the distribution of employment lengths). We apply our methodology to Spanish data, comparing the situation between 2013 and 2017, both for types of workers and for regions. We find that incidence and intensity move in the same direction, increase with age within each level of educational attainment, both for males and females, and with the average level of educational attainment. These outcomes indicate that, in spite of high levels of growth and employment creation, the incidence of employment has not improved very much (2.7% for males and 1.2% for females), while the increase in the employment lengths of employed workers has been even smaller (the increase of men being three times that of women). The combined effect of the three factors, incidence, intensity and inequality, yields more encouraging results but also shows large differences between men and women (6.6% vs. 2.7%). Finally, we also find that those Spanish regions that are below the mean in terms of employment (Andalusia, Castilla la Mancha, Valencia and Murcia) are further below in terms of the joint evaluation.