Industrial Employment Growth in Spanish Regions - the Role Played by Size, Innovation, and Spatial Aspects

Figure 6.- Regional Patterns.

3,0-

Canarias

2,0-

Cataluna

Pa^s Vasco

Madrid

Baleares

1,0

Espana

Castilla y Leon

CD

Andaluc^a

Navarra

Galicia

La Rioja

Asturias

0,0 —

-1,0-

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

Relative Employment Growth

Five regions evolve in a “virtuous cycle”: the Vasque Country, Navarre, Galicia,
Extremadura, and Murcia. Catalonia and Madrid, but also Balearic Islands and Canary
islands, are inmersed in a restructuring process, with higher than average growth of
productivity accompanied by a poor employment evolution. Andalucia, Castilla-La Mancha,
Castilla y Leon and La Rioja support industrial take-off. Finally, Aragon, Cantabria and
Asturias look like they are following a deindustrialisation process, with lower than average
growth in employment accompanied by a decrease in productivity.

Now we can test the first hypothesis specified in the introduction by using the information of
Figures 3 to 6.

If we adopt the regional patterns previously defined and assume a strict definition of the
hypothesis, stating that “industrialised regions with the highest share of small firms should be
the regions with the highest growth”, the assumption is rejected, in employment and
productivity analysis. Only a member of the industrialised regions based on small firms,
Murcia, belongs to the virtuous cycle. The other regions of Group II are included in take-off
(La Rioja, Castilla-La Mancha and Comunidad Valenciana), or deindustrialization, Aragon.
In fact, Industrialised regions based on large firms are better represented in virtuous cycle,
with the Vasque Country and Navarre as their representatives. Finally, it is surprising the

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