2015 sees record decline in number of Spanish jobless

The queues are shorter, the jobs more secure: Spain’s employment market has begun to slowly improve.

Spain’s economy and job market isn’t quite out of the woods just yet, but official data from the country’s National Statistics Institute (INE) has revealed that the number of jobless fell by 354,203 last year – the largest-ever annual decline in unemployment…

And while that means there are still 4.04 million Spaniards registered as unemployed, a jobless rate of 20.18% in the third quarter of the year is the best figure in more than seven years.

Current Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told a Spanish radio station that “the trend is very good”, but stressed that the country still has to “persevere” in order to continue improving the labour market and job prospects for millions more Spaniards.

In the run up to the general election held in December, the issue of employment was an understandably hot topic in Spain, with the incumbent Partido Popular (PP) government putting the fight against unemployment front-and-centre in its campaign.

However, despite garnering the most votes, the PP did not win enough seats to form a majority government, leaving Spain embroiled in ongoing negotiations to try to figure out how best to form a parliament.

Data from the INE for December could, if it had been available at the time, have helped the PP’s cause. The statistics show that in December alone, 55,790 new jobs were created, largely in the retail services industry but also in agriculture and fisheries.

An unemployment rate of just over 20% is an impressive improvement on 2013, when the rate soared past 27% to become the second highest in Europe.

This data means that Spain still has some way to go before it reaches just 8% unemployment – last seen in 2007 before the global economic crash – but the signs are positive that 2016 will continue the trend of job creation and employment stability.