Unemployment rises to highest level in 13 years

Unemployment in Spain rose to 20.33 percent at the end of last year, with 4.7 million Spaniards out of work, the highest figure since 1997, labor statistics released on Friday show.

After two subsequent quarters of job growth, jobless figures again rose between October and December, affecting mainly young people, according to the National Statistic Institute's survey on the active population (EPA).

In the last quarter of 2010, an additional 121,900 people declared they had lost their jobs.

The loss of temporary jobs in the tourism sector and construction due to bad weather were the two major reasons why unemployment figures rose, the survey says.

Among the sectors hit the hardest were the food and beverage service industry, which lost 115,800 jobs, and the construction sector where 95,600 jobs were lost.

On the other hand, there were more jobs created in the agriculture and industrial sectors.

"The Spanish economy has improved a lot more than expected during the last part of last year, but we still have our doubts about the first quarter of this year and those EPA figures confirm our doubts about the fourth quarter of 2010," Reuters quoted Citigroup strategist José Luis Martín as saying.

Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba called the new jobless figures bad news, but said they were in line with what had been expected.

For his part, José Manuel Campa, the secretary of state for the economy and the number two official at the ministry, said that he did not expect "any big fluctuations" in the jobless figures over the next six months.

Unemployment rose last year in all regions, except the Basque Country and Valencia. It climbed notably in Galicia, Aragon and Cantabria. Madrid had one of the lowest jobless rates at 8.7 percent.

The number of households with working-age members declaring themselves unemployed also grew after dropping in the third quarter for the first time in 13 years.