According to INEM – the government work people- after four months of slow job creation, unemployment figures in August suddenly jumped by 61,083, or 1,5% of the total, almost wiping out the job creations of the last four months.
Unemployment in Spain – ie, people who are registered as looking for work or on the dole – now stands at 3,969,661, a tad under the magic four million mark.
Breaking down the figures, we see that the whole thing was, as I had predicted (not that it took any great economic insight), a seasonal trend as the bars hired for the summer. 62% of all the job creation and loss were in the services sector. In other words, nothing that ZP has done over the last few months has made a blind bit of difference.
After the excitement with the Sol Times van on the motorway this morning, I hear that the Property Post has also announced that they are closing with immediate effect.
A brief note from Ashley said that:
Due to the Economic Climate,I regret to inform you that The Property Post is no longer trading.
We would like to thank you for you clientel and custom throughout the yearswe have been publishing.
I would also like to reassure anyone who has paid in advance for their Advertising we will be contacting you directly please be patient with us.
A pity. Local newspapers are an important voice to our community, and help bring out new members to our little expat group.
It seems that the truck carrying this weeks “Sol Times” caught fire on transit and so all copies were burnt to a crisp, so we won’t get any this week. (not that we ever do, of course, in this neck of the woods).
Rumours that a rival organisation flipped a match into the back of the truck whilst driving along the motorway are, I assume, unfounded but fun to imagine.
President Griñán of Andalucía has warned that due to falling tax revenues, the 2011 budget of Andalucía will be “not happy, and extremely restrictive”. He said that certain ministries must expect “sweeping” budget cuts.
He made the comments in a press meeting today after leaving a government meeting which was discussing the 2011 budget.
However, he has promised to maintain the programme of “social inclusion” – ie, enourmous handouts to people who don’t want to / can’t find work: we know the programme is working fine, because Andalucia has one of the highest unemployment rates in the whole of the EU- and has promised a vague programme called “sustainable Andalucia” which is supposed to involve 3,000 million euros worth of investment over the next 5 years.
He has -no doubt remembering that the unions are planning to strike on the 29th of Sept- said that he is not expecting any staff cuts in any government organisation. He also ruled out any regional elections before 2012, “come what may with the national elections”.
A police swoop over the weekend has resulted in 29 illegal taxi drivers having their vehicles confiscated, and receiving severe fines of between 1,500€ and 6,000€.
These taxi drivers, who mainly take people to the airport and bus station, have all been the subject of a series of complaints from watchers from the official taxi guild.
The official taxis have long been pressing for a greater crackdown on illegal taxi drivers, especially the ones carrying out the lucrative airport runs, and have promised to stop beating people up if the police do something.
Don’t know so far if any Brits have been amongst the arrested, although it’s more than likely seeing as to how many people have a full time job running backwards and forwards.
El Pais has discovered that the US government will not continue to pay for cleanup efforts or continuing blood tests for the 1,500 people who live in Palomares.
The US government pays some 314,000€ a year to the Spanish government to control the effects of the nuclear spill in the village, caused after a long range US bomber equipped with nuclear bombs crashed there in ’66. At least one bomb split open, spilling radiation across the village. Locals believe this is why the people of Palomares tend to be large and hirsute, and their vegetables larger than normal.
If you go round the back of the touristy area, you will still find a cordoned off area with lots of “danger – nuclear contamination – stay out!” signs. Building is, of course, banned in that area, but ironically enough tourist homes have been built right up to the wire. Rather you than me, mate.
The townhall of El Ejido has (quietly) confirmed that no one single private company has tendered a bid for an independent audit of the townhall accounts with the municipal mixed services company ElSur.
You will remember that the public prosecutor has claimed that the townhall of El Ejido channeled 150 MILLION euros of public money through this company, using false invoices.
The townhall’s only response to these allegations was to offer to conduct an “independent” audit of the last two years worths of accounts. They put this out to tender, for a rather paltry 60,000€.
Not one single auditing company has bid or expressed interest in the work.
This picture of a not so sunny beach resort called Mojacar was taken early this morning from Turre, after a cloudburst hit the region overnight.
According to reports from early morning people, car parks are four feet deep in water, basements are flooded, and La Parata was cut off after the rambla there filled with water, washing the road away.
I assume that the lack of vegetation in that area isn’t helping with the rain washoff.
Rain started at 4am and continued, heavily, all night. Police and Proteccion Civil units continue to assess the damage caused, and warn that we could expect more rain today. The area continues under a yellow alert for heavy rain. Hardly normal weather for mid-August, but it gives the tourists something to talk about.
Following on from my rant about getting wet in Saturday’s storm in Garrucha, I was upset to see this weather forecast for Almería this week from the BBC:
If you click on the image to make it bigger, you will notice that, rather ironically, the UK headline rather perkily states “A bright day across much of the UK”.
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