WASHINGTON: The unemployment rate in Spain fell 2.3 percentage points to 18.6 percent in 2016, its lowest level since 2009, according to the National Institute of Statistics on Thursday. In the last 12 months the total number without work fell by 541,700, down on the previous year when it decreased by 678,200.
There are still more than 4.2 million people on the unemployment list and more than 1.3 million Spanish households in which no one has a job. That’s down on the record 6 million people without work during the economic crisis on 2013. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he was pleased with the results. “If we’re able to maintain our economic policy, we’ll get to 20 million jobs by the end of the parliamentary term,” he said in an interview with Onda Cero radio. “There’s a lot left to do, but we’re moving forward.”
