An even bigger portion of the reduction in the use of labour has been in the form of the recourse to furlough schemes (ERTEs by their Spanish name). Indeed, in late September, work for almost 730,000 workers (a still-high figure, although it is admittedly almost 80% below the April high) was still fully or partially suspended. The series of actual Social Security registrations, constructed stripping out the figures for workers on furlough, still showed, on average monthly data, a year-on-year decline of 6.2% in September. The path of progressive recovery observed since May held up in September, albeit at a lesser pace than in the previous months. Moreover, heterogeneity across the productive sectors is very high. Compared with the pre-crisis level, the decline is particularly marked, in percentage terms, in certain services such as hospitality, which is particularly affected by the social distancing measures. Moreover, in absolute terms, the sizeable fall in actual registrations in this sector is indicative of the importance of tourism for Spain’s economy. 2  See Box 1 (“Macroeconomic scenarios for the Spanish economy (2020-2022)”) in the “Quarterly Report on the Spanish Economy”, Economic Bulletin, 3/2020, Banco de España. 3  In the coming quarters employment, in terms of hours worked, is expected to follow a very similar path to that of economic activity, showing declines of over 10% in 2020 and a subsequent recovery. Meantime, the increase in unemployment is being contained in the short term by the resort to furlough arrangements.
The aim is to mobilise the EUR 390 billion savings surplus of the euro area last year, notably to shore up equity which is the key to an innovation economy, and also to foster synergies, thanks to an integrated steering mechanism, between the Juncker investment Plan, the Capital Markets Union and Banking Union. The fiscal accelerator could be a euro area investment budget used to finance, for the benefit of all countries, certain “European common goods” such as digital technology, energy transition, security, and migration controls. If there is such progress on substance, in terms of institutions, we would need a euro area Finance Minister, President of the Eurogroup and member of the Commission, backed by a European Treasury; but also a euro area Parliament group, in order to ensure the democratic legitimacy of the institutions and decisions. [slide 15]  *** France is heading in the right direction and at a fast pace, with a strong government commitment to reforms. I stress it as fully independent Central Banker. France is changing for the best. But France is not alone obviously. The European and international environments need to remain supportive. In terms of economic upturn first, but also in institutional terms. A country cannot implement the appropriate structural reforms, improve its flexibility and attractiveness and then face a major disruption in international trade, reducing the pay-offs of such a political effort.