Spain: Unemployment rate rises in first quarter of the year
The jobless rate rose to 13.7% in Q1 from 13.3% in the Q4 2021, amid a wave of Omicron infections, the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and a strike by carriers in February. Moreover, the figure was marred by a slight decrease in labor force. In absolute terms, the number of unemployed workers stood at 3.2 million in Q1, up from Q4 2021’s 3.1 million. That said, the figure doesn’t include those under temporary furlough schemes as effectively unemployed.
Jobs were shed across almost most sectors of the economy in Q1. The industrial sector lost the most jobs (-68,000), followed by the services segment (-50,100) and the agricultural sector (-12,500), while the construction sector (+30,300) bucked the trend. Overall, a total of 100,200 jobs were lost from the prior quarter. For its part, the workforce dropped by 29,400 people in Q1 to a total of 23.3 million.