Spain’s unemployment rate hits 17.4%
Two million people lost their jobs in 12 months to end March 2009, raising Spain’s registered unemployed to more than 4 million. The jobless total has doubled since last year.
The central bank of Spain forecast the unemployment rate would reach to just under 20% in 2010. The collapse of Spain’s economy, which started two years ago, comes after more than a decade of growth.
“Greg Schellhammer, author of the e-book Survive the Crisis in Spain notes that at the current rate of unemployment increase, ‘Spain will reach 30% by summer 2010’ and if the economic downward spiral continues to worsen as it has over the past months then, ‘by summer [this year] we will see 25% unemployment in Spain.'” Spanish News reported.
“Why? It’s simple, up to now every estimate and forecast predicted by both official government figures and international analysts have been beaten, if we look at the trend, we see we are heading into a dark hole.”
The IMF forecast a two-year recession, with Spain’s “economy contracting 3.0 percent in 2009 and 0.6 percent in 2010,” with the unemployment rate rising to 19.3 percent by 2010.
PRO 