Spanish unemployment rose in the second quarter as a result of the corona crisis. The Spanish statistics agency has calculated this.
Unemployment has declined in recent years, but this has now come to an end.
The number of unemployed rose by 55,000 to just under 3.4 million people. This brings unemployment to 15.3 percent. In the first quarter of this year, this was still 14.4 percent.
However, the actual figures could be even higher because, during the lockdown in the country, people were unable to look for work actively. They, therefore, did not meet the definition of unemployment used by the statistical office. This could apply to up to 1.1 million people.
Employees who are temporarily at home and paid via a government schedule, about 1.8 million people do not count as unemployed.
The Spanish central bank had already announced last week that unemployment could rise to 24 percent in the worst case.
Bank economists foresee that unemployment will not fall below 17 percent in the next two years. Spain has had one of the highest unemployment rates of all developed countries for years.