Between direct and indirect, the new State investment fever in the modernization of the armed forces It will create 22,667 jobs in 2023, according to calculations by the Secretary of State for Defence. They will mostly be skilled jobsmost in design offices, but also in vehicle assembly plants, aeronautics and shipyards.
They are part of the total calculation of the employment impact of projects that have been ongoing for years, and which will result in 2023 from the reinvigorated activity of the ministry whose budget is growing further for next year, an increase of 25 .8%. From “the impact of traction on the industry throughout Spain” what this increase implies, boasted this Thursday the Secretary of State Amparo Valcarce before the Congressional Defense Committee. The climate of war and the incurring of expenses for NATO rule.
Nail real investment of 5,068 million euros – 45.7% of the total defense budget, which reaches historic high of 12.825 million– It will mainly rain on about 20 modernization and high-tech projects. The 14 largest represent 3,495 million euros. These are the plans, some with years of delay, to equip the Armed Forces with new fighters, drones, land vehicles, frigates and submarines with the indispensable minimum of a foreign industrial component.
From the smallest to the giant
In this deluge of military spending, it’s not all huge machines; there are two investment chapters for an elusive, virtual, undeclared and sometimes daily war: develop new combat technologies in cyberspace will take 67 million. Others disruptive technologies they will absorb 11.4 million for military applications of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and 5G.
Part of the new jobs calculated by Defense comes from the renewal of the Eurofighter fighter, the most advanced in the Army of… and also the most expensive: 619,998,750 euros investment next year. The program -since its creation and not only in 2023- is spreading 20,000 jobs between direct, indirect and induced, according to the Secretary of State.
8,700 other jobs revolve around armored infantry VCR 8×8, key for the army, which has been delayed for 21 years since its conception. Valcarce promised that the first seven vehicles would be delivered by Santa Bárbara Sistemas before January.
Among the projects that generate the most new jobs are the Euromale. This is the name of the unmanned aircraft manufacturing plan -the terrible role of drones in the war in Ukraine triggered its strategic value-, that next year it takes 38.6 million and that, according to the Defense, it will generate 3,000 jobs per year for the next 15 years. These are jobs mainly associated with the Airbus factories in Seville and the Madrid city of Getafe.
The program of the latest generation frigates, the F110promises 7,000 jobs in ten years, notably in Ferrol (A Coruña), and 6,000 the complex construction, which continues in Cartagena (Murcia), of the S80 submarine, “the closest thing to a spacecraft that the Spain owns,” one of its promoters told Navantia.
Own staff
These jobs will come from the industrial flank of defence; much less will sprout in the ranks of soldiers, since troops and sailors will continue to have a maximum of 79,000 men and women end of 2023. The commitment to NATO of reach 2% of GDP in military spending by the end of 2029 -in 2023 it will drop from 1.01 to 1.2- This does not mean, for the moment, that the armed forces will have more fighters.
On the other hand, for career soldiers (from non-commissioned officers upwards), Defense intends to maintain next year a 120% restocking fee.
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In total, the ministry he leads Margaret Oaks 5,375 million euros will be spent on personnel. The planned increase for civil servants and other chapters implies an increase of 313.6 million euros in this chapter, of which 286.9 have to do with the increase in salaries.
By 2023, the Undersecretary of Defense plans to summon 2,000 places for access to military training centers. In 2022, according to data communicated this Thursday by Undersecretary Worship Mateos to the Members of the Defense Committee, 47,000 people applied for 5,951 seats summoned.
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