Spain’s unemployment falls as summer jobs become available

The number of Spanish jobless benefit claimants fell in June as an avalanche of summer jobs opened up, government data showed on Tuesday. This gives a rare glimmer of hope to the recession-hit economy.

But when the figures were corrected to strip eliminate seasonal variations; the number of people registering as unemployed was actually slightly higher, the Labour Ministry report showed. With a record jobless rate of more than 27 per cent, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government have hailed the result as it pushes through an unpopular programme of reforms and austerity measures to cure a debt-laden economy.

The number of registered unemployed fell from the previous month by 127,248 people, or 2.6 per cent, to 4.76 million people in June, the report showed.