Do we have to talk about it? Unemployment numbers in Spain

Someone even lost his temper:

“If we need a bit of help with some tens of thousands of millions of euros, why not saying so? We must avoid the risk of an intervention. If a special loan could ease our internal difficulties, for instance with the financial system, let’s do it.”

Finance minister Elena Salgado simply retorted to BBVA’s chairman Francisco González, whose words you just read, that such a question was “lacking from any logic whatsoever” for two reasons, namely the manageable size of Spain’s debt-to-GDP ratio and that our spreads on sovereign CDS are currently getting tighter in a slow but sure fashion ─and this is a translation of her body language, not her actual answer.

But the latest progressions of unemployment figures as registered in the public-service offices for occupation (formerly INEM) whisper that domestic growth is ‘anaemic’, which is how AFI or Analistas Financieros Internacionales summarised it. There is a total number of 4.2 million jobless Spaniards, after a rise in January of 130,930 or 3.2% more than in December 2010. The consensus had marked the line at 83,800, but the ugly reality is this.

graphic21

 graphic121

AFI point out that a re-adjustment in the services sector, particularly in hospitality and retail, was to be expected once the magic of Christmas expired and indeed, it is from here that 80% of new workers out of job come, 105,080 to be precise, a 4.4% jump from the previous month. Corrections in industry and construction were lower than in 2008, by the way.

About the Author

Victor Jimenez
London contributor at thecorner.eu, reporting about the City and the Eurozone economies. He regularly writes for Spanish newspaper group Prensa Ibérica--some of his features include shared work with journalists of The Daily Telegraph and the BBC.

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