Executive Employment Observatory

What it is

The Executive Employment Observatory is a monthly analysis of hiring in management positions in Spain. It is produced by ZenitJob from the Contracts Statistics of SEPE, Spain's public employment service, which counts the employment contracts that companies register with the public employment services.

What it does

Every month, and always with the same method, it measures how many contracts are registered in management occupations, where, in which roles and on what terms; it explains what the figures mean and what they do not; and it makes the data and charts available to journalists and professionals.

Which trends it explains

• Evolution. Whether more or fewer contracts for management positions are registered than a year ago, month by month and year to date.
• Comparison with the market. Whether management grows more or less than all contracts, and its share of the total.
• Geographical concentration. Where contracts are registered, and the weight of Madrid and Barcelona.
• Type of role. Which management roles are hired: commercial and administrative, production and operations, hospitality and retail, public administration and other services.
• Sector. In which sectors of activity management positions are hired.
• Company size. Whether they are hired by small, medium or large companies.
• Stability. What share of contracts are permanent.
• Women. What share of contracts are signed by women.

What it does not measure: salaries, vacancies or job offers, the number of people hired (a contract is not a person), or how many executives are looking for work.

The fixed scorecard

Every edition publishes the same 11 indicators, calculated the same way and in the same order, so that one month can be compared with another:

1. Contracts for management positions in the month
2. Contracts for management positions, year to date
3. All contracts, year to date
4. Share of management in all contracts
5. Share of Madrid and Barcelona
6. Share of administrative and commercial managers
7. Share of companies with up to 50 employees
8. Share of the sector with the most contracts
9. Share of permanent contracts
10. Share of contracts signed by women
11. Contracts for management positions over the last twelve months

Alongside them, every edition has the same charts and the same sections: the month, year to date, where, which roles, which sectors, which companies, conditions and profile, and how to read the figures. If the method ever changes, the edition will say so.

Sources

• SEPE — Contracts Statistics. The Servicio Público de Empleo Estatal publishes every month the contracts registered in Spain. We use table 19.1M (contracts by occupation and province), table 2.3M (by occupational subgroup, type of contract and sex) and tables 10.1M and 10.3M (contracts for management positions by sector of activity and by size of the hiring company; these two also count conversions to permanent). SEPE contract statistics.
• INE — National Classification of Occupations (CNO-11). It defines what a management occupation is: major group 1, "Directors and managers", subgroups 11 to 15. CNO-11 at INE.

The reuse of this public information is authorised provided the source and date are cited and its meaning is not distorted. The Observatory does not use data from ZenitJob users.

Method and checks

A month is only used if it passes every check: the 52 provinces appear by name; provinces plus contracts abroad add up exactly to the national total published by SEPE; the subgroup table (2.3M) gives the same total as the province table (19.1M); men plus women equal both sexes in each subgroup; the sectors and company-size bands add up to their total, and that total equals the one in table 2.3M; and the period written in the file is the one requested. If any check fails, the month is not published.

Percentages are calculated on the counts before rounding. Each month is compared only with the same month of the previous year, and year-to-date figures with the same period of the previous year.

Publication calendar

SEPE usually publishes its contract data for the previous month in the first days of each month. The Observatory publishes its edition in the following days, once the data have been verified.

Editions

• August 2026 — Madrid and Barcelona again account for more than half of contracts for management positions, for the first time since 2017

Who is behind it

The Observatory is an initiative of ZenitJob, a job search support programme for senior executives, which directs it. The figures come entirely from SEPE and are always calculated with the method described on this page.

Press and use of the data

You may reproduce the figures and charts citing SEPE as the origin of the data and this Observatory as the author of the analysis. Press contact: Ignacio Tomé · info@zenitjob.com.