Are the Canaries the only region where unemployment fell?

No, there were two: the Canaries (−4,156) and La Rioja (−135). Of the 17 communities the Canaries had the largest fall. The autonomous city of Ceuta fell more steeply in percentage terms (−3.98).

Is this the Canary unemployment rate?

No. It is the number of unemployed people registered at employment offices at the end of the month. The rate comes from the INE's Encuesta de Población Activa, a quarterly household survey.

Why is unemployment rising in the Balearics while it falls in the Canaries?

No official explanation has been given. The data show the opposite movement: the Balearics up 841, the Canaries down 4,156. The immediate reading is opposing seasonal cycles; in earlier years the Balearic September movement was close to nil.

Are 31,341 open-ended contracts a good sign?

They are 45.0 per cent of the month's 69,644, slightly above the year's average of 43.75 per cent. In Spain "open-ended" includes fijos discontinuos , who work only in season: 218,908 of 706,948 nationally.

Why did unemployment rise in Spain if more people are paying contributions?

Both registers can grow at once. SEPE puts the increase mainly among people with "no previous employment" (+17,966). El Español attributes this to the regularisation; SEPE names no cause.

140,303 unemployed: Canaries buck the Spanish trend

140,303 unemployed: Canaries down, Spain up by 23,587

The Canary Islands ended September with 140,303 people registered as unemployed: 4,156 fewer than in August and 5,070 fewer than in September 2025. Across Spain the figure rose in the same month by 23,587 to 2,379,505. Of the 17 autonomous communities only the Canaries and La Rioja fell, and the Canary fall was the largest in both absolute and percentage terms. That is the advance data release of the Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal of 2 October 2026. What is new is not the islands' direction: this is the third September fall in a row. What is new is that the rest of the country did not follow.

2 October 2026 · By Martin Kosinski · 5 min.

What registered unemployment counts, and what it does not

Registered unemployment, paro registrado, is an administrative stock: it counts whoever is on an employment office's jobseeker register on the last working day of the month. It is not the number of people without work: those who do not register do not appear. In the Canaries 207,317 people were on the jobseeker register, 35,421 of them already in work. Nor is it the unemployment rate: that comes from the Encuesta de Población Activa, the INE's quarterly household survey.

Two archipelagos, two directions

The most useful sentence for anyone who sees only the headline: in the Balearics the season is closing while in the Canaries it is opening. That is why they move in opposite directions in the same month: the Balearics up 841, the Canaries down 4,156. The Canary September fall is no exception: 4,842 in 2025 (−3.22 per cent) and 4,375 in 2024 (−2.68 per cent), according to SEPE's advance releases for those months. But unemployment then fell in nine and in eight communities respectively, so the Canary movement drew no attention at all. The Balearics, though, barely rose in those Septembers: by 0.33 per cent in 2025 and −0.53 per cent in 2024. No body gave a cause on 2 October; SEPE seasonally adjusts for Spain as a whole only.

The month and the year are two different claims

Down 2.88 per cent on August and down 3.49 per cent on September 2025 are two statements, not one; for Spain they even point in opposite directions. That the monthly figure rose is the break: in September 2025 Spain's paro registrado had fallen by 4,846 people. Within the islands the fall is uneven — women 80,952 (−3.41 per cent), men 59,351 (−2.14 per cent) — and among under-25s it rose against the trend by 483 to 7,473. Long-term unemployment stood at 62,835 people, 44.79 per cent of the total and 6.64 per cent lower than a year earlier: according to the Servicio Canario de Empleo, quoted by eldiario.es/canariasahora on 2 October, the lowest since January 2009; the headline total the lowest since December 2007.

69,644 contracts, 45 per cent open-ended, and what that means

The contract figure is a flow, not a stock. What matters is its share: 31,341 open-ended contracts are exactly 45.0 per cent and the 38,303 fixed-term ones the rest; from January to September the share is 43.75 per cent of 538,546 contracts. "Open-ended" is also a broader category than the term suggests. SEPE itself breaks the month's 706,948 open-ended contracts for Spain as a whole into 288,319 full-time, 199,721 part-time and 218,908 fijos discontinuos, around 31 per cent. A fijo discontinuo holds an open-ended contract but works only during the season. SEPE does not publish that breakdown for the Canaries.

Why Spain rose, and who said what

One group stands out in the Spanish increase: "no previous employment", up 17,966 (+7.39 per cent), while construction fell by 1,726. For registered unemployment among foreign nationals SEPE records 399,663 people, up 6.98 per cent. The newspaper El Español read the effect of the extraordinary regularisation into those figures on 2 October, reporting that it brought 56,476 newly regularised people onto employment office registers in September; SEPE itself gives no cause. María Teresa Ortega, director of the Servicio Canario de Empleo, said according to eldiario.es/canariasahora that "la reducción del paro de larga duración es una señal positiva del comportamiento del mercado laboral". The director general for labour, José Ramón Rodríguez, noted: "El pasado mes se formalizaron 69.644 contratos en Canarias ... y 31.341 fueron indefinidos." CCOO Canarias, UGT Canarias and the Confederación Canaria de Empresarios had published no assessment; the latest CCOO Canarias report covers the first quarter of 2026.