Spain | Provincial analysis of employment contraction in Spain during lockdown

The use of Decision Trees shows that the initial employment contraction induced by national lockdown was, with few exceptions, more intense in the Spanish provinces with the greatest weight of the hospitality industry, agriculture, commerce and those dependent on a poorly diversified service economy.

Key points

• Key points:
• Consistent with the economic analysis, the application of Decision Trees methodology corroborates the importance of the productive structure in the heterogeneous response of provincial employment to the initial government measures to contain the epidemic of COVID-19.
• The results show that the provinces most affected were the touristic ones (identified by a weight of the hospitality sector in provincial employment exceeding 9.4%) or, alternatively, though with important exceptions, those highly dependent on the agricultural sector (identified by a weight of this sector exceeding 18.1%).
• On the contrary, the response was less negative in provinces with a high weight of the industrial sector (identified by a weight of the commercial sector below 18.8%) or, alternatively, with a highly diversified service economy (weight of professional services and financial services above 8.7% and 3.8% respectively), as is the case of the provinces where large urban areas are located.
• These features were less relevant in the initial contraction of employment during the real estate and financial crisis of 2008-2009, being the most key features at that event the weights of the public sector (with favourable implications) and of the banking sector (with unfavourable implications).

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