Saturday, April 25, 2009

Spain At A Glance....Unemployment 2007-2009

Here's one that will be updated every quarter with the latest data from the Encuesta de Población Activa. 2007 saw the lowest unemployment figures in the last 30 years.





Moving the mouse over each bar shows the quarter to which it refers. The best figure was that from the second quarter of 2007. Truly frightening is the rate of increase from summer 2008 onwards. The Spanish government believed that the 4 million figure would never be hit, but now the question is whether it will reach 5 million before things start to improve. Bear in mind that even after the low point of the recession is reached, the economy needs to achieve an annual rate of growth of around 2% just for employment to stand still. In other words, it will get worse before it gets better. Amazing, given these figures, that there are people who believe the problem with the Spanish economy is that it is too difficult to fire people.

Charts code courtesy of soitu.es

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