Spain is officially in a recession after the latest economic data shows that the economy contracted 0.4% last quarter, the second quarter in a row. Which is the official definition of a recession.
And the government is expecting a further contraction of 0.5% for this quarter.
All this, ontop of the unemployment – now 24% of the active population – after another 290,000 people lost their jobs in the first three months of the year.
Ouch. Don’t forget unemployment figures in Spain only reflect people registered as “seeking work”, ie, the people on the dole. So the real amount is higher. Although a lot of people work on the black, which is why things even out and Spain hasn’t descended into chaos, what with at least one out of every five people unemployed. (In Andalucia it’s higher, of course).
Official employment stats will be published on the 27th for the first quarter of the year by INE. As you would expect, the Public Employment Service doesn’t track unemployment figures, they just cut the dole cheques, so you have to wait for the stats people to get around to publishing their figures.
I think we can forget about any improvement in the figures until at least this time next year.