Spain unemployment rate up to 21.5 percent
Baku, October 29 (AZERTAC). Spain`s jobless ranks swelled to a record of nearly 5 million people in the third quarter — 21.5 percent of the workforce — as a sputtering economy failed to create jobs amid mounting global financial uncertainty, government data showed Friday.
The number of 4,978,300 unemployed stuck Spain again with the highest jobless rate in the eurozone. It was up from 20.9 percent in the previous quarter, and the highest since 1996.
People queue outside an unemployment registry office in Madrid Friday Oct. 28, 2011. The government says Spain`s unemployment rate rose more than half a percentage point in the third quarter to 21.5 percent. The National Statistics Institute said Friday the country`s jobless ranks swelled by nearly 145,000 in the July-September period. The jobless rate in the second quarter was 20.9 percent. The total number of people unemployed as of the end of the third quarter was 4,978,300.
Spain is struggling to recover economic growth after nearly two years of recession prompted largely by the collapse of a real estate bubble. Confidence in the government has faded, and opposition conservatives are tipped to score a landslide win in general elections on Nov. 20 over the ruling Socialists.
Normally, the third quarter of the year is good for employment in Spain as companies hire for the summer vacation tourism season. There have been rises in unemployment during the period in past economic crises, but never like this — by nearly 145,000 people, Labor Minister Valeriano Gomez said.
“The figure is bad. Bad, there are no two ways about it,” Gomez said after a Cabinet meeting that approved yet another series of labor reforms, this time designed to encourage hiring of younger workers and those over age 55.
The National Statistics Institute said the rise in unemployment was spread across much of the economy, with the services sector and construction particularly hard hit.
Gomez said the figures show the real estate sector is still bottoming out, and that since the crisis began the construction industry and related sectors have lost nearly 1.8 million jobs. The public sector has also been laying people off heavily or keeping vacant openings left by people retiring.
The figures were worrying on all fronts. The number of households with no one working, for instance, rose by nearly 58,000 to 1.43 million. Unemployment among those under age 25 dipped, but remained at a staggering 45.8 percent. Those who have not worked in a year or more now exceed 2.1 million.
Mariano Rajoy, the center-right leader of the Popular Party and widely expected to be the next prime minister, said the unemployment mess is the main reason for people to vote for him.
“Spain urgently needs political change. It needs it as much as it needs to eat,” Rajoy during a campaign rally in northern Spain.
Although the Spanish jobless rate was higher in a recession in 1996 — almost 23 percent — the population and size of the workforce were smaller then.
The current jobless number of nearly 5 million has no precedent. For Spaniards it is a psychological barrier that the government had once insisted would never be reached. It now concedes that is possible.
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