UNEMPLOYMENT IN SPAIN EASING

The data from the Public Employment Services for all the autonomous regions corresponding to November show an increase of 24,318 unemployed (0.6%) on the previous month. Registered unemployment now stands at 4,110,294 people.

The State Secretary for Employment, Mari Luz Rodríguez, stated that “no increase in unemployment is positive and that is why we must continue working on the issue”, although she did point out that the data for last month reflect the smallest increase in registered unemployment in Spain since 1998, something that “could be interpreted as a levelling out of the Spanish labour market”. In year-on-year terms, November recorded an increase of 241,348 people (6.24%).

In terms of economic sector, unemployment fell in the industry by 1,744 people (-0.36%) and in construction by 769 people (-0.11%). In this regard, Mari Luz Rodríguez highlighted that “unemployment in the last year has fallen in the industrial sector by almost 12,000 people and has fallen in the construction sector in 8 of the last 9 months”.

Unemployment rose in the services sector by 15,757 people (0.66%) and in the agriculture sector by 2,437 people (1.86%). For their part, the number of first-time unemployed registered with the Public Employment Services rose by 8,637 (2.43%).

Unemployment among men stands at 2,027,565 after an increase of 11,094 people (0.55%) and unemployment among women stands at 2,082,729 after an increase of 13,244 people (0.64%). In year-on-year terms, unemployment among men has risen by 87,164 people (4.49%) and among women by 154,184 people (7.99%).

Among young people under the age of 25, unemployment rose in November by 2,164 people (0.47%) on the previous month and among those over the age of 25 by 22,154 (0.61%).

Registered unemployment fell in five autonomous regions, led by the Canary Islands (-3,580 people), Extremadura (-2,573 people) and Madrid (-2,309 people), whereas it rose in twelve autonomous regions with Andalusia and Galicia recording the largest increases (8,517 and 7,827, respectively).

Registered unemployment fell in 16 provinces, especially in Barcelona (-2,660 people), Madrid (-2,309 people) and Tenerife (-2,020 people), whereas it rose in 36 provinces, led by the Balearic Islands (7,288 people) and Malaga (4,607 people).

The number of employment contracts recorded in November stands at 1,257,479. This is an increase of 53,452 (4.44%) on the same month of 2009. The accumulated number of employment contracts recorded in the first eleven months of 2010 stands at 13,227,332, which is an increase of 343,060 (2.66%) on the same period of the previous year.

Furthermore, 108,131 indefinite employment contracts were recorded in November 2010. This is an increase of 711 (0.66%) on the same month of the previous year and account for 8.6% of the total. In accumulated terms, a total of 1,135,043 indefinite employment contracts were recorded to November 2010. This represents a reduction of 91,544 (-7.46%) on the same period of 2009.

With regard to this growth in the number of indefinite employment contracts, the State Secretary for Employment stressed that “this is the first year-on-year growth we have seen since February 2008 and is the first growth in November since 2006”.

A total of 897,253 new applications were processed in November, which is a reduction of 6.8% on October 2009. The average period for acceptance of an application in October 2010 was 4 days, two days less than in the same month of the previous year.

The total number of benefit recipients stands at 2,927,530; an increase of 5.54% on the previous year. The rate of coverage for the unemployment protection system stands at 75.3% and the cost of providing these benefits in October amounted to 2,574 million euro; a reduction of 3.39% on October 2009.