Spain / Unemployment Drops From Record Level

Spain’s recession eased in the second quarter, pushing unemployment down from its highest level in the country’s democratic history and lending support to the government’s prediction of an economic recovery in the second half of the year.

Gross domestic product fell 0.1 percent from the first quarter, when it declined 0.5 percent, the Madrid-based National Statistics Institute said today. That matched the Bank of Spain’s estimate on July 23. Inflation in July was 1.8 percent, INE said in a separate release.

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said last week that the government must continue to overhaul the fourth-largest economy in the euro region to consolidate a “fragile” recovery. Four years of budget cuts have sapped domestic demand, hindering an exit from a slump triggered in 2008 by the end of a real-estate boom that lasted over a decade.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Spain Recession Eases as Unemployment Drops From Record Level – Bloomberg.

Spanish unemployment drops to 26.3% after 2-year rise as business looks up

Spain’s unemployment rate fell for the first time in two years and some of the country’s biggest firms said on Thursday business was looking up, boosting the government’s claim the economy is climbing out of recession.

The dip in the jobless figures — to 26.3 per cent in the second quarter from 27.2 per cent in the first — nonetheless highlighted how far the country still needs to travel on the road to full recovery. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos called the size of the figures “totally unacceptable”.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Spanish unemployment drops to 26.3% after 2-year rise as business looks up | GulfNews.com.