Job cuts in Spain are expected to deepen in 2013. Last year 850,500 people lost their jobs, which the highest rate of job cuts since 1.5 losses in 2009.
The impact of unemployment has lessened incentives for finding jobs and the working population has shrunk to merely 16,957,100. At the same time, the number of jobless workers grew by 187,300 people until practically 6 million, and the unemployment rate is right around 26.02%. The most troublesome part of the figures is that they assure, against what the government claimed several months ago, that unemployment will continue to worsen in the private sector and, obviously, in the public sector as well. This is bad news, primarily because the people that are enduring the situation are going to lose more and more jobs over the long term. Young people will suffer the worst, but all of Spanish society and government will also be hit hard.
The budget forecast was hardly penned when the national government made its prediction that unemployment would reach 24.3%. This high rate hurt Social Security contributions and unemployment benefit spending. When will the damage slow down? Economists think that jobs won't return until growth resumes. But this might not be possible until Spain lightens its debt load. Although the country is optimistic about its ability to do this, so that the debt refinancing isn't called a bailout, it will have to. Business people assure that we cannot wait. New changes need to be implemented in the labor markets, facilitating competitiveness and jobs, because the priority is to slow down job losses that continue to weigh down our economy.
