Jobless numbers fall in May as tourist season kicks off

The number of people officially out of work in Spain fell last month as companies increased hiring due to the start of the tourist season.

The Labor Ministry said Thursday the ranks of the registered unemployed fell by 79,701, or 1.87 percent, in May from April to 4.18 million. That was the second-biggest fall for May since 1997. Unemployment fell for the first time this year in April, which coincided with the Easter holiday period.

"This is a positive figure," the secretary of state for employment, Mari Luz Rodríguez said, but added that "there are still many people we have to help to prepare themselves for getting back to the labor market."

The number of jobless fell across the board and in all of the country's 17 regions. "The fall in unemployment in May was more spread out across all sectors than in April," Rodríguez said.

There were 34,613 fewer people out of work in the services sector, which accounts for about two-thirds of all jobs in Spain. Unemployment in industry fell by 10,663 and by 20,922 in construction.

"We're going to have some better months for employment and a fall in the jobless rate," Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said in an interview with state radio station RNE. "The main goal is that this trend consolidates itself in the last months of this year and in the first months of the following year."

According to the National Statistics Institute's survey of the active population, the number of people looking for work climbed to a record 4.9 million in the first quarter as the jobless rate rose by almost a full percentage point to 21.3 percent, more than double the average in the European Union, and three times the rate in Germany.

The number of people signed on with the Social Security system also increased last month by 117,900 to 17.5 million.

The seasonally adjusted figures for May, however, painted a less-optimistic scenario. In these terms, the number of jobless rose by 38,033 to 4.2 million, indicating that hiring in the month was largely due to seasonal factors such as tourism.