Spanish unemployment rose to a 15- year high of more than 21 percent, the most in the euro area, as government austerity measures undermine the recovery in the region’s fourth-largest economy.
Joblessness increased to 21.5 percent in the third quarter, the National Statistics Institute said today in Madrid. Consumer prices gained 3 percent in October from a year earlier after increasing 3 percent in September, the INE said in a separate report.
The last time unemployment rose to this level, in 1996, Spain’s Socialists lost to the opposition People’s Party, which polls indicate will win a general election on Nov. 20. The PP would face the challenge of spurring an economy crimped by failing domestic demand and tackling the euro region’s third- largest budget deficit to keep Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis at bay and stem a surge in borrowing costs.
