Jobless claims fall in March on Easter holiday hiring

Hiring in the hostelry business and other service sectors to cover increased activity during last week’s Easter holiday period helped provide some welcome relief to Spain’s sclerotic labor market in March.

According to figures released Tuesday by the Labor Ministry, the number of people officially registered as out of work with employment offices declined by 4,979, or 0.1 percent, to 5.035 million after a record high of 5.04 million in February. In March of last year, jobless claims climbed by 38,769. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, jobless claims last month fell by 6,212 to 4.857 million.

“This is the first fall in unemployment in March since 2008, and contrasts significantly with the figure in 2012,” the ministry said in a statement. In analyzing the figures it is important to bear in mind that Easter fell in April last year.

“There is a clear favorable impact from Easter Week, but the destruction of jobs is significantly less than the worst months of 2012,” Reuters quoted Santiago Sánchez Guíu, the coordinator for economics of the Flores de Lemus Institute of Carlos II University.

Compared with March of last year, the number of people registered as unemployed increased by 284,376, or 5.99 percent. The secretary of state for employment, Engracia Hidalgo, noted that that the annual increase in jobless claims had fallen by six points since May of last year.

The number of people out of work in the services sector declined by 15,822, or 0.50 percent, from February. Jobless claims rose in the rest of the economy.

The number of workers affiliated to the Social Security system increased by 30,528, or 0.19 percent, from February to 16.181 million. That was the first rise in eight months, prompting the secretary of state for social security, Tomás Burgos, to comment that this is a “positive figure in its own right.” Burgos said in terms of affiliation, the impact of the Easter holiday period was “neutral” as the increase in the hostelry business and other tourist related sectors was offset by falls in the rest of the economy.

Separately, according to figures released Tuesday by the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat, the jobless rate in Spain climbed to 26.3 percent in February from 26.2 percent the previous month to give a total of around six million.

In the euro zone, the rate was steady at 1.20 percent and rose to 10.9 percent from 10.8 percent in the EU.

Portugal’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 17.5 percent.