This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at La actividad del sector metal continúa su caída, según Confemetal

The activity of the metal sector continues its decline, according to Confemetal

23/03/2010

March 23, 2010

The Spanish Confederation of business organizations of Metal (Confemetal), has made public the latest data in the sector which serve to establish that the metal industry has started the year in negative with an annual fall of the productive activity of 2.2% in Januarythe same as in December.

These percentages are compared with two months, the last of 2008 and the first of 2009, which were already very negative. The whole of the year 2009 was closed in the sector of metal with a drop in the activity of 24.6%, after a decrease of 7% in 2008.

As regards the labour market, the number of occupied EPA in the metal industry decreased only a 12 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009 over the same period of 2008, resulting in a reduction of 136.800 jobs over a year earlier.

By quarters, in 2009 the rate of loss of jobs in the metal industry were the 14.2 in the first of the 15.9 in the second, the 17.3 in the third and that 12 per cent of the fourth. In the whole of last year, the average busy stood at 1.025.475, 14.9 per cent less than in 2008.

For its part, membership to the Social Security in all industrial branches of the metal fell by 8.6 per cent in February 2010 annual rate after a fall of the 12.4% in the middle of the year 2009which was for the membership in the metal industry the worst of the past decade in inter-annual terms.

With regard to exports, in 2009 fell by 19.8%, despite the positive rates of November (1.7%) and December (4.4), the first of that sign in fourteen months, however, were referred to the same months of 2008 when our sales abroad fell to rates above 20 percent.

Finally, imports recorded in 2009 a decrease of 30.2 in 2009, after the fall the 10.8 in 2008. The recoil, greater than that of exports, has allowed that the trade deficit of metal products has fallen a 59.1 per cent of annual average last year, after the decline of the 29.3 of 2009.