Unemployment continues its upward trend in April for the first time since 1996

Official unemployment figures went up by 37,542 in April, a month which is usually good for employment statistics. This is the first time since 1996 that unemployment has risen with respect to March. According to the Ministry of Work and Immigration there are now 2,338,517 registered unemployed workers in Spain.

In fact unemployment has risen by 315,393 (15.59%) over the last twelve months. Last year unemployment dropped by 36,327 in April which is almost the same number that it has risen this year.

Following favourable figures for March when the number of registered unemployed dropped by 14,356 following five consecutive months of rises, unemployment rose in April mainly due to unemployment in the construction sector with a rise of 16.647 more people in this sector without a job (5.2%) and in the service industry with 17,455 more unemployed (1.2%).

The highest rise in unemployed has been among men with 28,230 more unemployed (2.

9%), while in comparison unemployment among the female working population only rose by 9,312 (0.7%). At the end of April the total number of unemployed men was 996,715 and the total number of unemployed woman was 1,341,802. Compared to figures for April 2007 male unemployment is up by 30% and female unemployment by 6.7%.
Unemployment among the under 25 year olds has risen by 6,852 which is 2.5% more compared to March. For the over 25 year olds unemployment has risen by 30,690 (1.5%).

Unemployment went down in 5 regions in April: Baleares had 3,951 less registered unemployed, the Basque Country had 833 less and Navarra 618 less. On the other hand, unemployment went up in 12 regions headed by Andalucía with 8,928 more, and Catalonia with 7,747 more registered unemployed.

In contrast, the number of contracts for new jobs went up by 5.

3% compared to April 2007 with a total of 1,459,666 new contracted jobs which means that it was the best month on record for this statistic. Permanent contracts accounted for 12.97% of the total which is an annual increase of 12.05%.