Jobs boost after end of Covid state of alarm

Employment boost in pandemic recovery

SPAIN’s jobs market is steadily recovering from the coronavirus pandemic crisis according to the latest employment figures.

People registered as unemployed fell to 3,781,250 in May – a drop of 129,378 and a record fall in statistics dating back to 1996; the Last time there was a similar monthly improvement was in 2017.

The easing of coronavirus health restrictions since the state of emergency ended on May 9 which triggered activity in both the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Joaquín Pérez Rey, secretary of state for employment, said: “This historical and magnificent data is not due to the success of the government of the labour ministry but rather the Spanish people – who together have been able to face down the biggest crisis in history while maintaining the productive process.”

The numbers of people registered as unemployed does not include those temporally laid off under the government’s ERTE job retention scheme. However, these numbers are also falling from 636,283 in April to 542,142 last month – and the lowest since May 2020 when 3.6 million people were on furlough.