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Unemployment falls by 253,000 in 2014

The Local Spain/AFP
The Local Spain/AFP - [email protected]
Unemployment falls by 253,000 in 2014
An unemployment queue in downtown Madrid. Photo: AFP

Spain's jobless queues shrank by 253,627 from December 2013 to December 2014, new figures released on Monday show.

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That is a 5.39 percent year-on-year drop and the biggest year-on-year fall on record, the figures from Spain's unemployment ministry reveal. 

In December 2014, 64,405 left Spain's unemployment queues, the second largest December decrease on record. In seasonally adjusted terms, however, the total number of unemployed people fell by a less impressive 5,404 people. 

Some 1,384,062 new employment contracts were signed in December, but the vast majority of these were for temporary positions with only 7.21 percent of the new contracts for ongoing roles.   

The total number of people registered as looking for work at Spain's unemployment offices is now 4,447,711.

Only 57.88 percent of Spain's unemployed were receiving some form of unemployment benefits in November, the latest figures available. That was just up from the 57.07 percent seen in September, which was the lowest figure seen in a decade.

The average benefit received in November 2014 was €809.5 ($965), down €18.70 on a year earlier, Spain's El País newspaper highlighted.  

2014 also saw Spain creating work for the first time in seven years with 417,574 people signing onto the country's social security system.

SEE ALSO: Bleak 2015 outlook for crisis-hit Spaniards

Spain's registered unemployed list, produced by the employment ministry is a different measure from the benchmark quarterly unemployment rate published by the national statistics institute.

The institute recorded 5.43 million unemployed in Spain at the end of September, yielding an unemployment rate of 23.67 percent, one of the highest in the developed world.

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