Spain unemployment drops below 10% in first since 2008

Spain's historically stubborn unemployment fell below 10 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, official data showed on Tuesday, a first since the 2008 financial crisis.

The jobless rate in the European Union's fourth-largest economy was 9.93 percent in the period, 0.52 percentage points below the preceding quarter, the National Statistics Institute said.

It was the lowest reading since hitting 9.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, at the onset of a global recession that left deep scars in the Spanish economy.

"For the first time since 2008, unemployment falls below 10 percent. Spain has almost 22.5 million people with jobs, a new record," Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X. 

The service sector, which includes the vital tourism industry that represents around 13 percent of annual economic output, accounted for the bulk of the fall, alongside agriculture and industry, the statistics office said.

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Spain's economic growth has been consistently outperforming peers in the developed world, but its unemployment rate has been the highest in the European Union.

The rate peaked at around 27 percent in early 2013 in the wake of the economic crises but has steadily fallen in recent years as the tourism sector performed strongly after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The leftist government is aiming to bring it down to around eight percent by the end of its term in 2027, which it says corresponds to full employment.

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