The Spanish economy continued to grow in the third quarter of the year and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) registered a increase of 0.3% inter-quarter during the summer, which means that the bad expectations of many experts who predicted total stagnation (0 growth) or even that the economy would contract and enter negative territory have not been met.
According to the progress of National contability published this Friday by the INE, and which could later be revised upwards or downwards, the economy is resisting the panorama of international uncertainty, the weakening of exports of goods, the fall in activity in industry and the impact of persistent inflation and rising interest rates on the disposable income of families and companies, but it has suffered a slowdown compared to the second quarter, when it had grown 0,4%and at first, when he advanced a 0,6%. It thus registers the slightest quarterly growth since the first quarter of last year, when it advanced 0.2%.
In year-on-year terms, GDP is 1.8% above its value a year ago, which closes the gap with respect to the previous quarter, when it grew 2%, and marks its lowest growth since the pandemic. Even so, the Spanish economy already accumulates a growth of 2.3% compared to the last quarter of 2019before the covid broke out.
The good employment data that the INE released on Thursday, with 209,000 new jobs this summeralready pointed out that growth should be greater than initially anticipated, because when companies continue hiring it is because their activity is increasing – and GDP is growing -, unless productivity would have suffered an inexplicable collapse (that is, the workers incorporated into the activity were not able to maintain the production rate).
The domestic demand -which includes household consumption, business investment and public consumption- was responsible for economic growth in this quarter, with a contribution of 1.65 points to annual growth, with special importance of family consumption, which grew 1.4% in the quarter driven by the purchasing power gain (salaries this year are already rising above inflation) and due to the increase in employment, which increases the number of households in which its members have a job and a source of income.