Post Christmas layoffs push up Spanish jobless total

  • 10 years ago
Spain still faces an uphill battle in restoring its battered labour market.

The number of registered jobless rose by 1.75 percent in January from a month earlier.

That meant nearly 78,000 more people out of work for a total of 4.53 million.

Those figures were not adjusted for seasonal factors, like weather.

It was the first time since October that Spain’s jobs centres were fuller.

The end of the busy Christmas period saw the services sector take the biggest hit.

However builders hired more workers and the overall jobless total was down by six percent from January last year with 288,744 fewer unemployed.

In seasonally-adjusted terms unemployment fell by 42,723 people month on month.

The total number of people paying in to Spain’s social security system fell to 16.58 million by the end of January, down 1.2 percent from a month earlier.

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