Spain – Unemployment lowest since 2011

Spain’s unemployment rate fell to the lowest since the end of 2011 in the third quarter as its economy turned into one of the fastest-growing in the euro region.

Joblessness fell to 23.7 percent in the three months through September from 24.5 percent in the previous quarter, Spain’s national statistics institute INE said in Madrid today. The economy grew 0.5 percent in the period, the Bank of Spain predicts.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose four-year term ends next year, eased laws on firing and wage cuts in 2012 to encourage companies to hire. Still, unemployment remains the second-highest in the European Union after Greece even as the Spanish economy has completed its first full year of growth since 2008.

“It’ll take the economy about eight years to recover pre-crisis job levels,” said Diego Trivino, an analyst at Intermoney Valores in Madrid. “Unemployment will remain high and close to 18 percent for the next five years.”

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Spanish Unemployment Lowest Since 2011 as Economy Grows – Bloomberg.