Spain sees slight increase in first quarter jobless

Spain’s already high unemployment rose slightly in the first quarter, official data showed Thursday, in a bleak reminder of the challenges the country faces as it seeks to cement a fragile economic recovery.

The rate rose to 23.78 percent, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), up from 23.7 percent in the previous quarter.

The Spanish economy, the eurozone’s fourth-largest, has enjoyed modest but steady growth since emerging in mid-2013 from a recession after the collapse of a property bubble which brought Spain to the verge of default and threw millions of people out of work.

The economy grew by 1.4 percent in 2014 — the first full-year economic growth since the bubble burst — due to a rise in private consumption, higher business investment and a recovery in the construction sector.

But unemployment remains high with the International Labour Organization predicting Spain’s jobless rate remaining above 20 percent until the end of the decade.

Spain’s unemployment rate stood at 8.57 percent in 2007 at the height of the property boom, its lowest annual level since the country returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.