Spain's unemployment queue shrank in June as the economy slowly recovered after emerging in the middle of last year from a two-year recession, the government said today.
The number of people registered as unemployed in Spain's economy, the fourth-largest in the euro zone, fell by 122,684 from the previous month to 4.45 million in June, the Labour Ministry said in a monthly report.
Once corrected to smooth out seasonal blips, the number of people registered as unemployed fell by a more modest 16,113 people in June - the 11th consecutive monthly decline, it said.
"It is the longest declining trend recorded since 1999," State Secretary for Employment Engracia Hidalgo noted.
But Spain's overall unemployment rate rose to 25.93% in the first quarter of 2014 from 25.73% in the previous three months, according to a broader, household survey.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government is fighting to bring down the jobless figures, six years after a decade-long property bubble imploded in 2008, wiping out millions of jobs and sparking a double-dip recession.
