Spanish unemployment jumps to 16-year high

By Francisco Miñana

Date: Thursday 02 Feb 2012

Spain’s public employment service agency has revealed that unemployment rose by another 177,470 persons in January, marking the sixth consecutive month of job losses. Some analysts were expecting a loss of 125,000.

The figure is higher than the job losses registered in each of the comparable periods of the last two years.

According to the agency’s data, total unemployment now stands at 4,599,829 persons after 368,826 persons were added to the list over the last year.

Job losses rose by 6,282 in agriculture, 15,105 in industry, 16,347 in construction and 132,581 in services.

Unemployment among young workers under 25 years of age rose by 16,396 persons in January.

The number of unemployed rose in all 17 Spanish autonomous regions: led by Andalucia (39,050); Madrid (22,756); Cataluny (18,966); Valencia (16,757) and Galicia (13,050).

"This data shows that the Spanish economy continues to destroy jobs," said analysts at Digital Look. Last week, data from the so-called active population survey revealed that 5.2m people are unemployed and it is considered to be a more reliable indicator.

"Both indicators show that Spain remains a 'job destruction site', especially over the last two quarters in what was already a dire situation. There are already 1,575,000 households without a working member and the future outlook is not encouraging because the Spanish economy is expected to enter recession. It will be complicated to see a substantial improvement in the short-term although the new government will be legislating a reform of the labour-market," the analysts said.

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