MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain's recession hits remittances from immigrants

Immigrants' remittances from Spain to home countries totalled 1.95 billion Euros in the first three quarters of 2008, down 7% from the same period a year ago, reported the Banco de España.

This means immigrants sent 148 million Euros less to their home countries than in the same period in 2007, according to official preliminary figures released by the Spanish central bank. The third quarter figure confirms the downward trend in remittances that started last year during the first quarter with a contraction of 4%, compared to the same period in 2007. In the second quarter of 2008, according to Banco de España, remittances fell 2.6% compared to the same period a year earlier. Spain's construction and real estate industries, which attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants (from Latinamerica, Eastern Europe and Northern Africa) in the past decade, have been hammered by the global financial crisis. Preliminary estimates from the central bank show that Spain entered in recession during the last quarter of last year, with indicators pointing out to "a continuation of the pattern of deterioration" in economic activity. The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. In response to the shrinking economy and the collapse of the once buoyant construction industry, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapateros government recently unveiled an 11 billion Euro stimulus package aimed at creating as many as 300,000 jobs. The financial crisis and the decline in economic output over the past two quarters, mainly in the construction industry, caused the ranks of Spain's unemployed to swell and officials admit the worse is still to come. The number of registered jobless topped 3 million for the first time ever in December and the government said unemployment would worsen in 2009. Comparable government figures on the number of jobless in Spain go back to 1996 but Employment Secretary General Maravillas Rojo said during a conference that similar levels hadn't been seen since the recession of 1987. The number of people out of work in Spain jumped by 139,694 people, the ninth straight month of increases and more than expected, to reach 3.13 million, according to data from the Employment Ministry.