Spain’s unemployment rate has jumped to nearly 24pc in the fourth quarter, Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said on Thursday, confirming that the country is still in the throes of a long and painful economic crisis.
Mr Montoro told a parliamentary commission on Thursday that official figures due out Friday will show 5.4m people were out of work at the end of December, up from 4.9m in the third quarter, when the jobless rate was 21.5pc.
Spain already has the highest unemployment rate in the 17-nation eurozone and is near its record of 24.5pc unemployment, set in 1993.
The new conservative Popular Party government has pledged major labor reforms in a desperate bid to halt further job losses. A similarly-aimed reform in 2010 by the previous Socialist government appears not to hav
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9041862/Spains-Finance-Minister-Cristobal-Montoro-admits-unemployment-rate-has-jumped-to-24pc.html
Posted from WordPress for Android – mobile blogging!