Unemployment rises to 14-year high in Spain

Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, Maria Teresa Fernandez de La Vega

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IANS/EFE | 08 Apr, 2010
The number of jobless people in Spain has risen to a 14-year high of more than 4.16 million, with the addition of another 35,998 to the unemployment rolls in March, the government has said.

Unemployment has grown for eight consecutive months, and by 561,221 people, the Labour and Immigration Ministry said on Tuesday.

Reacting to the latest statistics, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de La Vega suggested that the country should see some "soft" expansion in employment by the end of the year.

Nearly half the people who joined the unemployment rolls in March were first-time job seekers, while another 10,000 were workers who lost positions in the services sector.

Spain's jobless are divided about evenly between men and women. Immigrants, representing around 10 percent of the country's 47 million residents, account for 616,320 of the unemployed.

The recession has taken a severe toll on the labour market and the central bank has predicted that the unemployment rate will peak next year at 19.7 percent.

Job creation will not start until the "final quarters" of 2011, the Banco de Espana said.

Spain's unemployment rate currently stands at 18.8 percent, ranking it second in the EU behind Latvia.

Wages are also expected to experience "a very notable slowdown" in 2010 of up to 1.5 percent and a drop of some 1.4 percent next year, the central bank said.