Spain Jobless Rises to 18.8%, Highest in Euro Region
Spain’s unemployment rate, the highest in the euro region, rose more than economists expected in the fourth quarter, threatening to delay recovery from the worst recession in six decades.
The jobless rate rose to 18.8 percent from 17.9 percent in the previous quarter, the National Statistics Institute said today in an e-mailed statement. The active population fell as immigrants left the labor market. The rate had been expected to climb to 18.5 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey of five economists.
Reeling from the collapse of a debt-fueled construction boom as well as the global crisis, Spain’s unemployment rate has more than doubled in two years and joblessness among young people has surged beyond 40 percent. The greatest job losses in the euro region are eroding support for the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, re-elected in 2008 on pledges of full employment, even after his stimulus programs put more than 400,000 people back to work.
“This is going to make the recovery more difficult,” said Estefania Ponte, an economist at Fortis Bank in Madrid. “The most important factor for private consumption is the labor market, and if there’s no improvement in the labor market, it’s very difficult for consumption to recover.”
Construction Workers
About half a million construction workers joined the jobless ranks in the two years to December as the decade-long building boom came to an end, Labor Ministry data show. Ford Motor Co. announced 600 job cuts last year in Spain, once the motor of job creation in the euro region, and olive-oil bottler SOS Corporacion Alimentaria SA also reported plans for layoffs.
The government’s 8 billion-euro ($11.2 billion) works program, which employed builders to widen sidewalks and install cycle routes, ended last month and is being replaced this year with a program half its size. Monthly jobless figures for January will be published on Feb. 2.
“It’s quite a risk,” said Giada Giani, an economist at Citigroup Global Markets in London, who expects unemployment to reach 20 percent this year. “With no pickup in employment, wages slowing and inflation picking up, the overall impact on real disposable incomes for households is likely to be felt more in 2010 than last year.”
People’s Party Gains
The opposition People’s Party extended its lead over the ruling Socialists and would win 43.6 percent of the vote if elections were held now, a poll published in El Mundo newspaper showed on Jan. 2. Unemployment is Spaniards’ main concern, according to the latest survey from the state-run Center for Sociological Research.
While the International Monetary Fund expects the 16-nation euro area, the U.S. and the U.K. to expand this year, it forecasts Spain will contract 0.6 percent in 2010. The budget deficit probably grew to 11.2 percent of economic output in 2009, according to a European Commission forecast, as job losses mounted and the government extended benefits for the long-term unemployed.
The Cabinet today plans to discuss spending cuts of as much as 50 billion euros by 2013, the deadline set by the commission to bring the shortfall within the EU’s 3 percent limit, said an official at the prime minister’s office who declined to be named in line with policy.