GDP only rose 1.1% in the second quarter of 2021

Jug of cold water for the Government's economic recovery forecasts. The Spanish economy grew by 1.1% in the second quarter of the year, thus returning to positive values ​​after having registered a 0.6% decline in the first quarter due to the impact of the third wave of Covid and the storm 'Filomena ', according to data from the National Accounts published this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This quarterly growth of 1.1% is 1.7 points lower than the figure advanced by the statistical agency at the end of July, when a 2.8% increase in GDP advanced for the April-June period, affected by the third wave of the Covid.

The Vice President of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, announced on Tuesday that the arrival of the economic recovery would take place at the end of 2021. Calviño pointed out that the GDP growth forecasts were maintained at 6.5% in 2021 and 7% in 2022 by the thrust of investment and domestic consumption to explain the speed of the recovery: "There is no precedent in our recent economic history for such a rapid recovery." The data offered this Thursday by the INE throw the government's forecasts to the ground.

In a year-on-year rate, GDP shot up 17.5% after the halt suffered in 2020 and in the first quarter of this year due to the impact of the pandemic. This rate is 21.7 points higher than that of the first quarter, but is 2.3 points below the one initially estimated by the INE (19.8%).

Domestic demand added 17.3 points to year-on-year GDP, 20.3 points higher than in the first quarter, while foreign demand had a contribution of two tenths, 1.4 points more than in the previous quarter.

The INE explains that in the advance data for the second quarter published at the end of July, most of the indicators on the economic evolution of the quarter offered results up to May, incorporating additional sources available for all months of the quarter and advanced estimates of indicators based on Administrative data.

The results published this Thursday by Statistics already incorporate all the statistical indicators that mark the economic evolution of the second quarter, whose information already covers, in most cases, the whole of it. In addition, they include the series revised since the first quarter of 2018.

"In the analysis of the revisions of the macroeconomic aggregates on advanced results, the inherent difficulty in measuring the situation that we have been facing since the first quarter of 2020 must be borne in mind. It is a period of great and rapid changes in the short-term evolution of economic activity which, both due to its origin and its magnitude, pose an unprecedented statistical challenge, "says the INE.

Employment in the economy, in terms of hours worked, registered a quarter-on-quarter variation of 4%. This rate is smaller in the case of full-time equivalent jobs (0.0%, which is 1 point less than in the first quarter) due to the increase observed in the average full-time hours (4%).

In year-on-year terms, hours worked grew 29.5%, a rate 32.2 points higher than in the first quarter. Full-time equivalent jobs increased 18.9%, 21.3 points less than in the first quarter, representing an increase of 2.8 million full-time equivalent jobs in one year.