The Economy of Catalonia

It is very obvious that Madrid has a much higher figure and Catalonia
has a much lower figure than the other regions. This is yet more evidence
that the establishment of state structures for an independent
Catalonia will lead to a considerable creation of public positions in
Catalonia.
We cannot end this presentation without pointing out that Catalonia has
five times fewer workers in State Administration than Madrid and three
times fewer than Andalusia. These, however, are not offset by the number
of workers belonging to the Catalan Autonomous Region Administration,
because there are still proportionally fewer workers in Catalonia
than in Andalusia and in Madrid.
Catalonia has more jobs in the private sector for what are, strictly speaking,
public sector activities, such as education and health, but there are
also other factors that explain this situation in Catalonia. One of these is
the funding model. For more than 30 years Catalonia has suffered deficiencies
in the assessment of transfers of funds between the Spanish State
and the Generalitat. In 1985 Ramon Trias Fargas made this clear, denouncing
disloyalties of the Spanish government concerning agreements
regarding the basic economic burden (Trias, 1985).
After comparing Catalonia with similar European countries and, in the
context of other Spanish regions, we conclude that the Catalan public
sector is small in size, that it has the strength to grow and that it should
grow.
The Spanish State public sector in Catalonia
and the new Catalan State
In this second part we study the jobs that the Generalitat of Catalonia
would have to create to cope with having the full powers of an independent
and self-sufficient State within the European context.
A prior comment is needed, as, having confirmed in the previous section
that the staff of the Generalitat will increase, we also anticipate that the
increase will not be very large. As of December 2012, the number of
Generalitat workers was 160,925, of which 72,334 were in education
and 36,867 in health. These two areas represent 68% of the Generalitat’s
total staff. It is very possible that independence will not entail a signifi-
124 The Economy of Catalonia