Spanish Unemployment Continues to Rise

Spain’s unemployment continues to rise in March, though at a slower pace than February.

According to the data released on Tuesday, March jobless claims rose 0.82 percent from February. In February, jobless claims increased 2.44 percent. The total registered jobless in March were around 4.75 million.

The unemployment rate among people younger than 25 is around 50 percent, and their number of registered jobless grew 1.4 percent in March. More than 500,000 total under 25 years old are registered jobless.

According to the data from Eurostat agency, the Spanish unemployment rate was 23.6 percent in February, more than twice the 10.8 percent average rate for the 27 EU members, and an increase from the 23.3 percent rate in January.

Spain’s economy is expected to contract 1.7 percent this year. The government is imposing austerity measures, but is still struggling to slash the country’s budget deficit.

Last week, the new government announced budget cuts worth more than 27 billion euros, or about 2.5 perecent of gross domestic product. The increase in unemployment and jobless claims makes cutting the budget a lot harder. Spending on unemployment benefits rose 3.4 percent to 2.72 billion euros in the month of February compared with the same month a year earlier.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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