Spanish Unemployment Down to Below 20% for First Time in Six Years

Spanish Unemployment Down to Below 20% for First Time in Six Years

Encouraging news for spain as unemployment carries on falling

There are plenty of signs that the Spanish economy is getting back on track and one of the latest concerns the state of the Spanish job market.

For the longest time now Spain has seen unemployment levels that are much higher than the Eurozone average. Now the most recent data says that Spanish unemployment is at 18.9% and it’s a pretty significant number. This rate might still be higher than France, Germany and Belgium but how much unemployment has fallen by is encouraging for Spaniards.

Even two years ago the Spanish unemployment rate was around 30%, which half of youths unemployed. Now Spain can say that they have finally put an end to the times when unemployment in Spain reached 1-in-5.

The data comes from the National Statistics Institute and it shows that there are around eighteen and a half million Spaniards in employment. As you might expect the tourism, construction and manufacturing industries all reported strong growth during the summer. Over 220,000 jobs were created in the tourism sector along in the past three months. While it’s true that some of these jobs were only temporary seasonal work, there were still more long-term jobs offered than in the past few years.

When the end of the third quarter came the INE calculated that only 4.32 million Spaniards are currently unemployed, and only 27,300 people found themselves laid off over the quarter. During this same period some 217,700 new positions were opened up in the private sector. Even the public sector added 10,000 new jobs despite being left rudderless for the past ten months due to a lack of government.

Spain is pretty much back to normal now following the drop in unemployment to below 20%. Because Spain is such a regional country that changes with the seasons unemployment levels have always hovered around 20%. The unemployment rate only dropped below 15% during the economic booms before and after the turn of the millennium.

From all perspectives it looks like 2017 will see even more people in work in Spain as it’s expected the economy will grow by over 3% next year. All of the signs are very encouraging and if it all goes well it should also lead to more confidence from consumers and investors in other leading Spanish industries such as the real estate sector.