Employment in Sagunto and Camp de Morvedre 2026: at least a third must work outside the district
The Camp de Morvedre district has 14,042 more resident workers than local Social Security registrations. Employment hit a high in the third quarter of 2026, yet at least 34.6% of employed residents would have to commute to another district.
Anyone living in Sagunto, Puerto de Sagunto (the coastal district) or any other town in the area sees the problem every morning: the third quarter of 2026 closed with 40,600 workers living in the Camp de Morvedre district and only 26,558 Social Security registrations at workplaces inside it. That leaves 14,042 jobs short of matching the employed population, a gap equal to 52.9% of local registrations, and it is closed by commuting to other areas.
The figures come from an analysis by Comisiones Obreras (CCOO, one of Spain's main trade unions) and carry an unusual twist: according to the union, no earlier third quarter had gathered so much employment in the district. The record and the mismatch coexist, so more contracts do not automatically mean that work is closer to home.
The percentage that comes from comparing the two columns deserves a careful reading. If every job in the district were filled by local residents, 34.6% of employed residents, a little more than one in three, would still have to work in another district. It is a floor, not a ceiling: some of those jobs are filled by people who come from outside, so the real share of those who leave is probably higher. The district, created in 1989 and made up of 16 municipalities, is listed with 99,848 inhabitants in 2024 according to Viquipèdia, so the 40,600 employed residents equal roughly four in every ten inhabitants.
There is also a second type of journey that this comparison does not capture. Within the district itself, and even inside the municipality of Sagunt, the distance between residential areas and industrial zones means many workers depend on a private vehicle.
Contract stability, by contrast, is improving. Of the 19,671 people registered in the General Regime, 13,146 hold a permanent full-time contract, or 66.83%. Another 17.32% are permanent part-time and 4.92% are permanent seasonal (fijo discontinuo); together the three types add up to 89.07%, and the remaining 10.93% falls under other arrangements. Outside the General Regime there are 5,649 self-employed workers, more than one in five registrations in the district, plus 415 in the special agricultural scheme, 621 in domestic work and 202 in the maritime regime. All of them together make up the 26,558 registrations.
The growth is not new: in the first quarter of 2025 the district had already passed 24,500 registrations by workplace, which is at most about 2,000 fewer than now, although the two figures compare different quarters.
Sergio Villalba, general secretary of CCOO in the Camp de Morvedre and Alto Palancia, argues that so much travel affects job quality: it means higher costs, adds to the time spent on the working day and exposes workers to road accidents on their journeys.
The union adds housing to the picture. It points to Sagunt and Canet d'en Berenguer as the municipalities where prices have risen enough to make it hard for many workers to get a home. Industrial growth in Sagunt, driven among other projects by PowerCo's battery gigafactory (the Volkswagen Group battery plant), also feeds expectations of housing demand and new property developments in the area.
According to CCOO, the combination of expensive housing, transport costs and pricier utilities cuts purchasing power even for people on stable contracts. Villalba sums it up this way: having a job and drawing a salary no longer guarantees making it to the end of the month or securing a home. In response, the union asks for more sustainable mobility and alternatives to the car, both to cut commuting costs and so that people without a vehicle can reach jobs.
That debate leads to the general strike on 11 November. As democrata.es reported, on 19 October CCOO, UGT, CGT, CNT and other organisations registered the mobilisations, whose demands include a 7% rise in the minimum wage for 2027. CCOO will use the day to demand that economic growth turns into real improvements in living conditions in districts like the Camp de Morvedre too, where employment is at a high but travelling to work remains a necessity for thousands of residents.
According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional data from Wikipedia and democrata.es.