Tourist trade adds jobs to brighten Spanish outlook

Spanish unemployment has fallen for the first time in two years, although nearly six million people remain out of work.

A rise in the number of workers in the tourism industry resulted in a decline in the jobless rate to 26.26 per cent of the working-age population.

Spain created 127,000 new jobs in May and 100,000 last month, the best such period for seven years, but about three million people have been unable to find a job for more than a year, forcing hundreds of thousands to leave the country in search of work.

?If we compare the development of unemployment of this quarter to the same quarter during the past five years, it must be underlined that the fall in unemployment is the biggest since 2008,? INE, the national statistics office, said.

Analysts sounded a note of caution, saying that the fall was likely to prove only temporary.

Ignacio Sanz, a UBS analyst said: ?Despite mixed headlines ... Spain is getting better. Spain had four big problems; only one is left ... a high budget deficit.?

Another promising sign was three Spanish banks recording a jump in first-half profits. Bankia made a ?192 million profit helped by extraordinary gains in the second quarter, although the result fell short of analysts? predictions of ?246 million net profit.

Sabadell and Bankinter, two medium-sized banking groups, were also in the black. Sabadell?s interim profits rose to ?123 million and Bankinter?s net profit was ?102 million.

Spain has been in or near recession since 2008 and received a ?42 billion bank bailout last year.

Source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/markets/europe/article3825500.ece

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