Quarter of Spain’s unemployed out of work for four years or more

ALMOST one in four people out of work in Spain are now long-term unemployed. While recent trends have shown encouraging drops in the country’s unemployment rate, more than 23 per cent of those still looking for work have been unemployed for four years or more, a total of 1.2 million workers.

Amongst that group, there are 180,000 people living in desperate straits in households where there is no income whatsoever.

The figures from Spain’s Active Population Survey illustrate the hold the crisis still has. When Spain’s economic bubble burst in 2008, just 7.3 per cent of people registered as unemployed had been out of work for more than a year. By 2011, six per cent were without work for more than four years. Now the exact figure of those unemployed for more than four years is 23.4 per cent.