Madrid: Spain’s jobless queue grew by nearly half a million people in the year to September, government data showed Tuesday, as the nation lurched towards a sovereign bailout.
The number of people registered as unemployed grew by 478,535 people, or 11.32 percent, to 4.71 million in the year to September, a Labour Ministry report said,
When compared to August, the jobless figures were up by 79,645 people, or 1.72 percent.
Most of the job losses in the month came in the services sector at the end of the summer tourism period while unemployment eased a little in farming, building and factories.
If seasonal variations are smoothed out, the number of job seekers grew from the previous month by 25,078 people, or 0.52 percent, to 4.82 million in September.
The ministry’s monthly tally is based on the number of people registering as unemployed.
A broader, quarterly household survey by the National Statistics Institute provides the official unemployment rate, which hit 24.63 percent in the second quarter of 2012, the highest in the industrialised world.
Close to a million people have been looking for work for more than two years, or some 20.8 percent more than a year ago, according to a study published Monday by the UGT union.
Spain has been in recession since late 2011, its second downturn since the bursting of a property bubble in 2008 that destroyed millions of jobs and left the banking sector strewn with bad loans.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government is forecasting an economic contraction of 1.5 percent this year and a further shrinkage of 0.5 percent next year.
It tips a recovery in 2014 with growth of 1.2 percent.
But financial markets view these forecasts as being overly optimistic. The International Monetary Fund forecasts for 2013 an economic slump of 1.2 percent and Standard and Poor’s a contraction of 1.4 percent.
The grim economy, bulging deficit and high borrowing costs are driving Spain towards seeking a full-blown bailout. The government says it wants to know more about the conditions, however, before making a decision.
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