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Spain Unemployment Reaches Record High, Consumer Confidence Down The Gutter
Unemployment in Spain is still increasing on a monthly basis!
In March 2011, Spain unemployment figures jumped almost 1 percent,
adding 34,406 jobless month-on-month to a new record high of 4.33
million. On a yearly basis, the unemployment rate jumped by 4 percent.
The current jobless rate runs at +20 percent in Spain, which is more
than twice the European average (9.9%). Unemployment is especially
raging among the younger population of Spain.
In the meantime, the Spanish consumer is getting more and more depressed.
Via RTT News:
Elsewhere, survey data released by the Instituto de Credito Oficial
(ICO) showed a decline in Spain’s consumer confidence for the first
time in three months. The consumer confidence index dropped to 68.3 in
March from February’s 73.4. The score was 72.7 in the same month last
year.The two main components of the index declined in March. The
expectations component slid to 92.5 from 98.5, falling for the first
time in three months. The current situation measure fell to 44.1 from
48.3.Consumer morale was apparently hurt by expectations of rising
inflation, highest since August last year, and rising interest rates,
ICO said. Further, escalating oil prices and doubts over global
economic recovery in the backdrop of renewed uncertainty, arising from
the Middle East and North Africa and the Japanese earthquake, likely
weighed on sentiment.
We won’t see a recovery any time soon in Spain!
Guess Jean-Claude Trichet has to yell and shout a little louder at
Spanish officials in the future. His cries for more and deeper (labour)
reforms, back in December 2010, are unheeded.
Oh well, there’s always the euro printing press of course.
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Well said falak. More for the rest of us. I for one will not lament the relentless descent; it's like complaining about the weather. "Be angry at the sun, if these things anger you" as Robinson Jeffers once wrote.
The Spanish have only one way of drowning their current sorrows: watching Barcelona and real Madrid play football. That is what the modern world is : one big roman coliseum where the ball and the gladiator are media diffused game and king. Thank you Madison Avenue for shilling all this money of plutocrats' uber-wealth into a game to amuse the impoverished plebes.
As Spain Cracks what are some of the best ways to profit during the crash if you have the money to risk. How do spains futures compare to US futures, do the indexes track very close like ES? Thanks.
That's basically a question of policy. Do they get bailed out? Do the ultimately default?
It's ultimately a similar question to the inflation/deflation debate: What we all end up debating is the random decisions of a bunch of unelected old men sitting in stodgy old government buildings.
One thing is for sure: The two next big trends are poverty and misery. If you can figure out a way to play those, you'll be a rich man.
Everyone is trapped now and has to await the printing press-driven bailouts.
In the years before 2008 Spain, Greece and Ireland were always held up as the great examples of industry and progress to the Germans: "Oh my, why doesn't FIRE replace dreary machine tools ?"
Not saying Germany has any less guilt in this, it enjoys its subsidized exports and freeloading on other countries stimulus packages.
All that was required was fiscal responsibility within limits by the government to get into the Euro, no real estate bubble, subsidized "green economy" or public deficits were forced unto them by venal Brussel bureaucrats or German financiers - but the bailouts will be.
They got to borrow cheap for the last 12 years, if they think they can do better, fine, get out, devalue, and see if someone will lend them anything at lower than 20% interest rates in the the new peseta.
Magpie. When you say 'Them' you mean the Government I presume. You see, when it goes wrong the people geet the blame and when it goes right the government gets the credit. The Brussells bureauocrats reel them and their people in like fish on a line with promisses just like they did with Ireland.
It's always been tomorrow in spain and they may have defalted in the past but they are now trapped as intended by the EU elite.
At some point I would think the trend would be to not work; especially if a lot of your friends aren't.
I believe the moral hazard of the "financial crisis" - which deomnstrated clearly to the average person that a great majority of the reward for their toil was being handed over to bankers and financiers supported by governments that tax them out the ass - removed a great deal of incentive to work.
The Moral Hazard is coming home to roost.
I agree. Bravo. Its not worth starting a business either. Too much tax and EU interference. Stuff 'em.
John Galt lives!
Socialists are running out of OPM! ( other people's money).
Refusing to work and pay taxes are the only ways the productive can fight against the parasites.
I would much rather see a system collapse than let redistributionists rule even one more day.
It is the duty of every real american to cheat the government out of tax money any way we can. We can limit government by limiting its fuel
mañana mañana (Tomorrow, tomorrow)!
And Spain claims to have an economy based on Green technology.
As Dr. Phil would say, "So how's that workin' for ya?"
Well if they mean sheep, chickens, olives and oranges, wine and luxury villas -- then I guess it's possible. LOL.
The notion that Spain, Greece and Portugal were ever considered first-world economies was always a little absurd. I don't see anyone manufacturing flat-screen televisions, cars, microchips or solid-state drives there. They had some beautiful, pastoral land -- and they built a whole bunch of luxury villas on it -- and hired a few rock-star architects to build municipal buildings and museums. But that's hardly an engine for future growth. Now they're paying the price.
Bubble city.
Now you see the destruction of the libertarians. Spain does not have enough regulation and government control of industry. Now they pay the price.
It's not the lack of industry control that is the problem. Perhaps you could comment on the fact that the Euro is causing control/regulation of the economy that is the problem. I'd like to see you expand your thesis. A state cannot have decay in one area without affecting others.
They are experimenting with green jobs and other failed socialist ideas. The people are paying the price, while the politicians are being demagogic.
Paro Perras!
Zapatero after his return from New York to talk to Obama, and prior to
the General strike in the fall of 2010, addressed the country and stated that
Spain could become a laboratory of Labor relations. These words seemed to
me to have been dictated to him to repeat in exchange for favors.
He should have remembered the words spoken by the Roman consul to
Ditalcon, Audax and Minuro, the murderers of Viriathus, as they went to
the Roman Camp to claim their gold: Rome does not pay traitors
Spains going down and fast, just wait.
MCD is hiring 50,000 on Friday what's the prob?
some of the personal stories coming out of there are terrible and only going to get worse.
Lived in Madrid 15 yrs. ago and unemployment was an issue back then as well. Foreigners like myself were told that we had absolutely no chance of getting a job there, unless it was US / NATO defense related. Quite frankly, I didn't see many prospects for people in their 20's who were natives. Unions were rife throughout the country, but I couldn't see any significant manufacturing or industrial capacity.
si, es malo, but what is their labor participation rate?
Labor participation rate is the best employment indicator.
We need a Shadowstats.com for Europe & elsewhere to decode gov't spin.
If the officialrate is about 20%, adding 10% (22% total) to that seems conservative.
Maybe 25% to 30% in reality.
Heading lower than the taxpayer-participation-rate in Greece.
even better..raise interest rates! i think trichet was heard to say "how about a little Marquis with that Sade mo fo."
Does anyone else in here think the Fed or some other force is holding lots of fingers in this particular dam? The PIIGS must default, et c'est tout!