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Spanish jobless rate hits 12-year high

04 February 2009 10:12 (UTC +04:00)

Bakuâ€“ APA-Economics. The number of people out of work in Spain rose to a 12-year high in January as companies shed tens of thousands of jobs due to the collapse of a decade-long property boom, official data showed on Tuesday, AFP reported.
By the end of January there were more than 3.3 million out of work, up 6.35 percent or 198,838 over the previous month, the labour ministry said.
It was the tenth straight monthly increase and the highest reading since 1996, when the current jobless registration system was introduced, highlighting how the global financial crisis is compounding the country’s economic problems.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he expects the situation will start to improve in March and April when 32,000 public works projects get under way across the country which will create over 300,000 jobs.
The government guarantees the payment of unemployment benefits to people in this situation so that they can meet their basic needs," he added.
The public works projects are part of a two-year stimulus package worth 11 billion euros (14.3 billion dollars) which the government announced last year as part of measures aimed at reviving the Spanish economy, the fifth largest in Europe.
Under Spain’s welfare system, workers can receive unemployment benefits for a maximum of two years, meaning those who lost their jobs since the tide turned in mid-2007 will no longer get payments by the middle of this year.
Spain’s once-buoyant economy has suffered as the global financial crisis has added to the woes of the key real estate sector which was already weakened by oversupply and rising interest rates.
The labour ministry does not calculate a monthly percentage unemployment rate but according to the latest quarterly figures it hit 13.91 percent in the last three months of 2008, the highest rate in the 27-nation European Union.