A busy Christmas season in Spain helped boost registered employment in December, data showed, though the country's jobless rate remains one of the highest in Europe. The number registered as jobless fell by 1.34 percent month on month, or by 55,790 people, according to Tuesday's Labour Ministry figures. That reflected higher spending over the festive period by Spaniards, many of whom have seen their purchasing power grow during an economic recovery that has gathered pace since the country exited recession in the third quarter of 2013.
Some 61,336 fewer people signed on as jobless in the service sector, which includes shops, restaurants and hotels, the data showed. Unemployment also fell in the agriculture sector, but rose in construction and industry. Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been quick to claim credit for job creation in the last two years, with figures on Tuesday showing over half a million joined the workforce in 2015.
The aim now was to create 2 million more jobs in the next four years, he said in a radio interview on Tuesday, reiterating a target set during his term in government. For now, the overall employment picture in Spain remains gloomy. In seasonally adjusted terms, registered jobless fell by just 1,258 people in December, and some 4.09 million were out of work.
The Spanish quarterly unemployment rate, taken from a wide survey conducted by the national statistics institute, was 21.2 percent in the third quarter, the second highest in the European Union after Greece. That is well below the high of nearly 27 percent hit at the beginning of 2013, but further still from the figure of just under 8 percent reached before the economic crisis began in 2007. Rajoy's centre-right People's Party gained the most votes in parliamentary elections on December 20 but fell well short of a majority, while left-wing parties also failed to win a clear mandate to govern.
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