Spain unemployment 'will not pass 5 million'

 

Spain's unemployed looks set to stay below the five million mark during the course of 2011, regardless of the financial data for Q1, due for release on Friday, according to Minister Valeriano Gomez.

Gomez speculated on the tone of the report, commenting that it "will be a bad piece of data,"

At the end of the last quarter unemployment stood at 20.3% in Spain, uincreasing from 19.8% in Q3 of 2010, and the highest level since Q2 of 1997, when it stood at 20.7%. The Q3 decline had been the first since the rate started a continued rise in the Q2 of 2007, when it stood at 10%.

The number of unemployed in Spain currently sits as 4.7 Million.