MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unemployment in Spain reaches 13.9%, highest in 9 years

Unemployment in Spain during 2008 increased by 1.2 million, a 66.4% jump over 2007 taking the official rate to 13.9% which is the highest in 9 years according to the latest figures released by the country's Statistics Institute, INE.

The total number of unemployed in Spain is now estimated to be 3,207,900, which means that the unemployment rate is at its highest level since 2001 and is also the highest in the Euro zone. Additionally the number of people in employment has seen its biggest fall since 1976 when figures began to be compiled. The number of unemployed then grew by 620,100 in the space of 12 months and by 489,600 in just one quarter. The last quarter of 2008 was especially bad since unemployment soared 23.44%, the highest percentage on record. In fact almost half of the total increase in the number of unemployed occurred in the last quarter of 2008 when 609,100 became unemployed. Overall in 2008 620,100 jobs were lost which meant the number of the active population in employment fell below 20,000,000 (19,856,800) - 3% less than in 2007. According to figures publish by INE the number of the active population grew by 3% to 23,064,700 in 2008. Jobs occupied by Spaniards fell by 619,600 in 2008 compared to a fall of 600 for foreigners. Last year the rate of unemployment among men grew more than among women. Unemployment among women grew by 470,700 (+44.9%) while unemployment among men grew by 809,600 personas (+92%). According to these figures the unemployment rate for men is 12.96% with an inter-annual increase of 6 points and unemployment among women grew by 15.14% with an increase of four points. One of the consequences of the sharp growth in joblessness is the growth of 827,200 in the number of households in which all members are unemployed. The Spanish government has forecast the economy will contract by 1.6% in 2009 as Spain dives into its worst recession in 15 years, but many private economists regard this as optimistic. The government has earmarked 8 billion Euros for construction and infrastructure projects it says will create at least quarter of million jobs from March and expects the unemployment rate to top out in 2009 at 15.9%. But most economists' expect Spain's unemployment rate to reach 19% by 2010. The government is already feeling the fiscal cost, predicting its public deficit to rise to almost 6% of GDP this year from a surplus of around 2% in 2007. State sector debt will rise by almost 70% in 2009, the government said this week, to a net 86.5 billion Euros.