Spain's Unemployment Rises Again In July

Registered unemployment in Spain, where construction firms added more than a million jobs this decade, increased for the fourth consecutive month in July. Unemplployment has only fallen now in one month (February, just before the elections) in the last eleven. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose 1.5 percent, or 36,492, from the previous month to 2.43 million, according to the Spanish Labor Ministry. From a year earlier, the number of claimants increased by 23 percent, or 456,578.





Home sales and mortgage lending slumped by more than a third in the year to June. Jobless claims among construction workers grew 5.4 percent in July over June. Unemployment in service industries was up 0.8 percent on the month.