Spain jobless figures continue to fall

Spain's economic recovery is beginning to create more jobs

Official data from Spain’s Labour Ministry has revealed that the country’s jobless total fell by 1,949 in February – the first time since 2007 that the shortest month of the year has seen a fall in unemployment.

This latest round of job creation means that there are now 4.81 million unemployed people in Spain – a figure that still accounts for 25 per cent of the working age population and remains one of the highest in the EU…Annually, according to the Ministry, Spain’s jobless total has fallen by 227,736 in the space of 12 months, which is an incredible turnaround for an economy that was in dire straits less than 18 months ago.

“These figures reaffirm the trend of the past few months, which has enabled us to have 222,736 fewer people registered as unemployed than a year ago,” said State Employment Secretary Engracia Hidalgo.

However, the government’s statistics have been challenged by some economists. Quarterly unemployment surveys among the country’s populace suggest that there are still some six million Spaniards out of work, a figure that would take the unemployment rate above 26 per cent. Many economists in the EU believe that these surveys are more accurate than the figures published by the government.

The chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, told a conference in Spain this week that the country’s economy had performed well in emerging from the last recession, but stressed that job creation must now become the government’s primary focus.

“Creating jobs must be the overriding priority for Spain’s policy makers,” she said, before urging Prime Minister Rajoy to go further with his labour reforms by lowering the costly tax obligations that sometimes deter bosses from hiring new, permanent staff.

Further data from Madrid revealed that there are now 16.2 million workers in Spain affiliated to the country’s social security system – which is a year-on-year increase of 60,000, breaking 68 consecutive months of year-on-year declines.

“That was the number that the government has been waiting for,” Marcel Jansen, professor of economics at Madrid’s Autonoma University, told the Financial Times. “For us to be able to talk about a clear change in the tendency we had to see a year-on-year change in the situation.

“The labour market has now left behind the enormous destruction of employment. The problem, however, is that the absolute size of the increase in jobs is very small.”