THE Bank of Spain Business Activity Survey (EBAE) of the fourth quarter of this year, published two days after the socialist debacle in Extremadurashows that the institutional weakness and this critical moment in Spanish politics is not going unnoticed by businesses.
The impact is greater in businesses that depend on your decisions about energy or regulatory policyas is the case in transport or industry. The impact is less in the case of services.
The survey, conducted between November 17 and December 1, is based on a sample of more than 6,800 companiesmany of them come from assessment center of the bank, which represent the essential part of the Spanish economic fabric.
The problem of political instability is slightly greater than chronic lack of work qualified, financing and demand experienced by Spanish companies. And at a similar level for the energy costs.
The labor shortage is a perception shared by 48% of companies, 2.4 percentage points more than three months ago. By sector, the problem worsens in the construction, hospitality and agriculture, where the ratio is placed at levels of 60%.
On this podium of factors which affect business activity, the energy costswhich have a lot to do with political stability, also constitute an obstacle to 46.5% of the companies surveyed.
Faced with this, the access to financing represents a serious problem only for 13% of companiestwo points more if they are SMEs. And only 9.7% of the largest companies.
In this area, we can see the reduction in private debt carried out in Spain for more than two years. Only 17.7% of companies see their level of leverage as a difficulty, a fact which tends to diminish.
Moderate optimism
The investigation by the Bank of Spain, which has become a reference on the development of business, presents general end-of-year lines, very similar to the trend of the whole year, during which the ceiling of growth and activity was reached.
In fact, a 55% of the consulted sample expects improve your billing next year, while 34% will maintain it and only 11% fear reductions. In the latter case very focused on agriculture and the countryside.
Despite this great confidence in the fact that things will go well, if only by inertia after a good year 2025, almost a third of companies maintain a great uncertainty on meeting expectations.
The data are more favorable regarding the evolution of fourth trimester this year, which will end with annual growth of 2.9%. The model of other districts is maintained, with improvements in professional and administrative activities, in the face of bad omens for the hotel industry.
The improvement between October and December is also reflected in employment. But with a worrying fact: it would increase in large companies, although at a much lower rate than a year ago. While among the For SMEs, a slight reduction is expected.
Investment, however, will close the seventh quarter of growth, in close collaboration with large industrial and construction companies, as all current status reports show.
And upward inertia in the business investment mood is also noticeable for the first quarter of 2026, which the Minister of Economy already spoke about last month, Carlos’ body.
But as for turnover and employment, this upward trend is particularly noticeable in large companies, while in the case of SMEs everything indicates a freeze and a reduction in investments.
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