Spain jobless rate at record 26.02%

Madrid: Spain’s unemployment rate shot up to a record 26.02 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012, leaving almost six million people out of work, the National Statistics Institute said Thursday. The rate rose from 25.02 per cent in the third quarter as the country’s recession deepened. Over the year, 691,700 more people lost their jobs, the institute said, adding that there were now 1.8 million households in which no one was employed. Spain is in the throes of its second recession in just over three years following the collapse of its once-booming real estate sector in 2008. Battling to reduce a swollen deficit and avoid a bailout, the year-old conservative government has made major financial and labour reforms and applied severe austerity measures such as cutbacks in wages and spending as well as tax increases.