MADRID--Spain's unemployment rate edged higher in the first
quarter from the previous three months, as an accelerating economy
failed to offset seasonal job losses.
Spain's INE national statistics bureau said Thursday the rate
stood at 23.8% compared with 23.7% in the fourth quarter, driven by
the loss of 114,300 jobs in the span.
Still, a close look at the data indicates the country's recovery
from a seven-year crisis continues apace and should lead to a slide
in the rate in coming quarters.
INE said the job loss in the period was the smallest in any
first quarter-typically a poor one for country's large and
jobs-intensive tourism industry-since the country's property bubble
burst in 2008.
In addition, the number of people in Spain without jobs fell by
13,100, the largest drop in any January-March quarter since 2005,
to 5.44 million. The number of Spanish households with all active
adults unemployed, seen by many as a key social indicator, fell by
a whopping 9.4% over the last 12 months, the steepest reduction
since 2006.
Despite a recent slide from all-time high levels, Spain's
unemployment rate is the second highest in the European Union after
Greece, which stood at 26% of the workforce at the end of 2014.
During the early stage of the European crisis, Spain led the EU
in unemployment, with Greece's unemployment rate becoming the
highest only in mid-2012. Spain's unemployment rate still kept
rising, and peaked at 26.9% in the first quarter of 2014, just as
the economy was giving its first signs of recovery.
This jump in unemployment was largely driven by the loss of just
over three million jobs between the heyday of the country's
property boom in 2007 and 2013, with two-thirds of those
corresponding to the real estate and construction sector.
A timid recovery in construction started last year, with the
addition of 40,000 new jobs, and continued in the first quarter, as
30,300 new jobs were recorded in the industry.
This is particularly good news for Spain's poorest regions,
mostly in the south of the country and lacking in manufacturing.
The property boom there led to quick fortunes and highly-paid jobs
for low-skilled workers, and the property bust drove unemployment
through the roof.
To this day, the unemployment rate in northern regions such as
Navarre and the Basque Country is less than half that in Andalusia,
the region with the highest unemployment rate in all of Europe.
Andalusia's unemployment rate fell in the first quarter to 33.6%
from 34.8% in the fourth quarter, as the region was one of only two
that posted net job creation in January-March. Navarre had the
lowest unemployment rate of Spain, at 15.7%, in the first
quarter.
Just Wednesday, the EU's statistics agency Eurostat said all
five European regions with the highest unemployment rate are in
Spain, with Melilla, a Spanish enclave in northern Africa, also in
the top ten.
Four Greek regions make up the rest of the top ten, but
differences between regions in Greece are much less prominent, and
the split north-south not so obvious. One of those four, Dytiki
Ellada, is in the center-west, while two are in the north (Kentriki
Makedonia and Dytiki Makedonia) and the fourth is the region where
the capital city, Athens, is located.
Write to David Roma at David.Roman@wsj.com
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