Spain announced Thursday a dip in its towering unemployment rate in the latest sign that the eurozone's fourth-largest economy is battling its way out of recession. The jobless rate eased for the second straight quarter to 25.98 percent in the third quarter of 2013, a report by the National Statistics Institute showed.
The news dovetailed with a Bank of Spain assessment the previous day that Spain had emerged from two years of recession in the third quarter with timid 0.1-percent economic growth. That was enough to send world stock markets briefly higher as investors hoped for a broader recovery in the eurozone after five years of economic crisis.
The number of people out of work in Spain dipped by 72,800 to 5.9 million in the third quarter, lowering the unemployment rate from the previous quarter's 26.26 percent. It was the second straight quarter showing a drop in the unemployment rate, which peaked at a staggering 27.16 percent in the first three months of 2013. But analysts warned it was too soon to celebrate.
"Spain still remains entrenched in deep recessionary conditions despite what the Bank of Spain said about the third quarter," said Raj Badiani, British-based economist at research house IHS Insight. The latest figures showed that the number of people employed actually declined by 497,000 workers, or 2.9 percent, over the year, he noted. For young people, the employment news remains bleak with 54.39 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds out of work, according to the latest report. Every member of some 1.8 million Spanish households is out of work.
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