The number of Spaniards registered as jobless fell for the fourth straight month in May and at the sharpest pace for that month on record, according to official data yesterday, though almost one in four remained out of work.
Jobless fell 2.7 percent in May from a month earlier, equal to the drop reported in April, as 117,985 fewer people were registered as out of work, data from the Labour Ministry showed. That left some 4,215,000 Spaniards out of a job.
“The economic recovery in Spain is not cyclical but structural,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in response to the figures, reiterating a promise that at least 20 million people will be registered as working by 2019.
The total number of people paying in to the social security system rose to 17.2 million by the end of May, up 213,015 people, or 1.25 percent, from a month earlier.
The first quarter unemployment rate, according to a survey by the National Statistics Institute (INE), stood at 23.8 percent.
Jobless figures rose in January for the first time since October, marking the end of the busy Christmas season, though the numbers began falling again February and have dropped in each month since then.
Joblessness fell most markedly in services, down 2.4 percent, or by 68,826 people. In the construction sector, 17,520 fewer people were out of work, while the number of unemployed factory workers fell by 12,874, the figures showed.
Spain’s jobless drops for fourth month in a row
Josep Bagur Gomila