MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Anaemic Spain: no end in sight for soaring unemployment

Last month another 100.000 Spaniards queued for unemployment benefits

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits in Spain shot up by nearly 100,000 in September, a surprisingly big increase even in a month that tends to be bad for workers as vacation season contracts expires.

Tuesday's figures from the Labour Department are likely to stoke renewed worries over the Spanish economy at a time the government is trying to appease investors fretting over its strategy to deal with hefty borrowings.

The department blamed the anaemic state of Spain's economy and the effect of austerity measures on the job market for the bigger than usual increase in September claims.

It added that government's forecast that 2011 would end with net job creation, albeit small, will probably be wrong.

The official forecast is for GDP growth of 1.3% for 2011, but hardly anyone believes that anymore.

The department acknowledged the jobless claims increase was disturbing, as it was nearly twice as big as the increase posted in September 2010.

Deputy Labour Minister Mari Luz Rodriguez said that in recent weeks the ministry had seen daily increases of 10,000 in claims for jobless benefits, and called the numbers “tough and negative.”

The Labour Department says the increase of 95,817 raises the total to 4,226,744. That's an increase of 2.32% from August. It was also the biggest jump for a September since the department's current accounting system was launched in 1996.

Spain's overall jobless rate is released separately and quarterly and stands at just under 21%, a Euro zone high.