Spain’s jobless rate soared to a 15-year high of 21.52 per cent in the third quarter of 2011, according to newly-released data, a stinging blow to the government three weeks ahead of elections.
The towering unemployment rate, up from 20.89 per cent in the previous quarter, is the highest since the end of 1996 and the highest among major industrialised nations.
Among 16- to 24-year-olds, the rate was a staggering 45.8 per cent, barely down from 46.1 per cent three months earlier.
The overall unemployment queue grew to 4.978 million people at the end of September from 4.834 million at the end of June, National Statistics Institute figures showed.
The figures make grim reading for a Socialist government already facing the prospect of a drubbing in November 20 elections at the hands of the conservative opposition Popular Party.
High unemployment and a series of painful spending cuts to rein in runaway government budgets have provoked widespread resentment and sparked a nationwide “indignant” protest movement.
Finance Minister Elena Salgado defended the government’s record on employment.
“What people say, including in the recommendations over the European Council, is that Spain must adopt measures to favour growth and create employment,” she told Cadena Ser Radio.
“And that is what we are working on, by carrying on with a process of changes in our economy which will make us more competitive and make an economy that generates more employment.”
The Spanish economy slumped into recession in the second half of 2008, battered by a global financial meltdown and the collapse of a property bubble, which threw millions out of work.
Economic growth has been anaemic ever since.
Analysts widely expect an economic expansion of about 0.8 per cent this year partly because of the number of people excluded from economic activity.
About 3.2 million people had been added to the jobless queue since the crisis began four years ago and it would take a long time to absorb them, IE Business School analyst Juan Carlos Martinez Lazaro said.
The latest figures showed the number of homes in which everyone was unemployed rose 57,000 to 1.425 million homes.
“It is a factor that could have a big effect on social stability,” Mr Martinez Lazaro warned.