Spanish co-operatives boost employment during crisis

29 Jan 2013

Co-operatives created 8,000 jobs during the first half of 2012 in Spain, according to the Spanish Ministry for Employment.

At a time when unemployment reached a new record in the country, with five million people without a job, co-operative enterprises have managed to not only maintain, but also increase the number of jobs by 7.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2012.

According to Spanish Confederation of Workers Co-operatives (COCETA), the employment figures in worker co-operatives have doubled in the first half of 2012 based on the previous year — and now more than 250,000 people working in 17,000 co-operatives.

Juan Antonio Pedreño, President of COCETA, said: “This clearly shows that worker co-operatives are an important option when it comes to creating jobs that governments should value in order to help local economies.

“We continue to argue that this is always the case, but that during crisis co-operatives show that they are capable to create new jobs, whilst other enterprise models are destroying them; and this happens even though co-ops do not enjoy the same access to finance”.

Furthermore, COCETA also revealed that more than 80 per cent of those that form the co-operative have a permanent job, being members of that co-operative.

Co-ops are also doing well in terms of gender equality, with women representing almost 50 per cent of the employees, and 40 per cent are in a leadership position.

Mr Pedreño said that co-operatives are special not only because they maintain employment throughout crisis, but also because they enable social responsibility and solidarity.