ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

ASPEL, one of the Spanish associations representing the contract cleaning sector, has published its annual report - Building and Premises Cleaning Sector Data. This confirms there are 478,000 employees in the industry, which accounts for 1.05 per cent of the country's GDP.

Juan Díez de los Ríos, ASPEL president, announced cleaning is one of the top 10 service sectors in Spain in terms of employment. "We comprise two per cent of the 20.5 million employees in the country and nine per cent of the five million services wage-earners in Spain," he said.

The number of employees has risen by 15,000 in the past year and 74 per cent of the 478,000 are women. Almost 4,500 cleaning companies are operating in the sector.The report - which is based on updated data from different sources such as the INE (National Statistics Institute), the TGSS (General Social Security Fund) and the employers' association's associated companies - also confirmed the professional cleaning sector continues to be very fragmented. Almost 50 per cent of turnover is concentrated in the 14 main companies.

"The 30-Day Late Payment Law continues not to be complied with," announced Díez de los Ríos. With regard to debt figures the report only shows an improvement of 20 per cent - in the autonomous regions - with an increase of 15 per cent in national government agencies and 23 per cent in local authorities.

Absenteeism continues to be disproportionately high in the cleaning industry compared to other sectors, the report demonstrates. It rose following Covid-19 and it has risen again in the past year to 6.55 per cent.