- Junior labour minister Engracia Hidalgo
The number of people out of work in Spain rose last month, as a fifth year of economic downturn left the country with a third of the labour force jobless. The number of people registering for jobless benefits surged by 132,055 from December to 4.98 million, the Labor Ministry in Madrid said on Monday. There are now around 5 million Spanish workers without work compared to 1.7 million in 2007, while the overall unemployment rate standing at 26%, the second highest in the European Union behind Greece. Earlier this month a report showed that Spanish economy contracted by 0.7% from the previous quarter, the steepest decline since the second quarter of 2009, after a 0.3% dip in the previous quarter. Latest data are showing that the recession, which started in the final months of 2011 is still weighing on the Eurozone's fourth-largest economy.
"The rate of the annual increase, which nearly hit 13 per cent in May 2012, has continued to descend since that date and is now situated near 8 per cent," junior labour minister Engracia Hidalgo said in a statement.
"The diagnosis is clear," says Jaime Pastor, political science professor at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia."Rajoy has portrayed himself as the leader who averted a bailout, but instead he is not only facing the territorial challenge of Catalonia."
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