Consequences of COVID-19 on the Barcelona labour market

The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique example of how an exogenous factor can radically alter the functioning of an economic system. The chapter aims to identify some of the ways the pandemic has affected the functioning of the Barcelona labour market in the years 2020-2022. The pandemic has resulted in an economic crisis unparalleled by previous crisis episodes, both in terms of its intensity and its uneven impact on economic sectors, resulting in a stronger impact in the core of the metropolis than in other less central places, unlike previous crises. But there is a second element that distinguishes this crisis from previous ones, and that is the decisive and swift reaction of the economic authorities, both national and European. Nevertheless, structural reforms to boost productivity growth remain to be tackled. To this end, it is proposed to use income policies and programmatic agreements but specifically incorporating the metropolitan dimension of the labour market as a source of productivity.