Unemployment in the Balearics for the third quarter was down by 13.6% (14,000 people) from the second quarter of this year and by 11.4% (11,500) by comparison with the same quarter of 2014. The unemployment total at the end of the quarter was, therefore, 89,500, which, according to the latest figures from the National Statistics Institute, gives an unemployment rate of 13.9%.
In relative terms, compared to the second quarter, the Balearics showed the best quarterly performance in terms of increased jobs of all the regions of the country. This was a rise of 5.6%, or 29,600 more employed, although Catalonia registered the highest actual increase in terms of people - 35,800 more in employment. At the other end of the scale, Andalusia showed a drop of 50,400.
For Spain as a whole the number of unemployed fell by almost 300,000 in the third quarter, giving a figure equivalent to that of levels in 2011. The number unemployed nationally was down to 4,850,800, the first time that the figure has gone below five million in four years.The unemployment rate dropped by 1.2% to 21.2%, the lowest since the second quarter of 2011.
An increase of over 180,000 in the number of those with employment boosted the total employment figure to over 18 million and was the highest third-quarter increase since 2006. In the past twelve months, employment has increased by 544,700 people, while unemployment has decreased by 576,900, the largest annual decline according to the survey of active population (EPA) since 2002.
In terms of sector, the drop in unemployment in the third quarter was in the services sector (which includes tourism), with agriculture being one that showed a slight increase. As for age groups, each of these showed a cut in unemployment with the exception of the over-55s and the under-19s.