Spain's unemployment to fall by 650,000 people this year

Spain's unemployment is expected to fall by 650,000 people this year, the economics newspaper Expansion reported on Wednesday citing Spain's Minister of Economy and Competitiveness Luis de Guindos.

De Guindos said that unemployment would fall more than predicted, pointing out that this year it would decrease by 650,000 people, the "most intense figure in history".

De Guindos, who made this statement at a meeting called "From restructuring to Transformation" organized by Expansion and KPMG, explained that the economic situation in Spain had changed when compared with four years ago.

"Almost four years ago Spain was in recession, almost on the edge of bailout. Today the situation is different," he said, "the country grows close to 3.5 percent, 600,000 new job opportunities are going to be created and unemployment will fall by 650,000 people."

The Bank of Spain's governor, Luis Maria Linde, who was also at the meeting, showed optimism about the performance of Spain's economy that experiences "a vigorous growth without inflation, job creation and external surplus", he said.

Linde also said that the unemployment rate would fall below 20 percent by 2016.

However, this optimism could be undermined by some external factors or a change in the government's policies that could occur after the general elections to be held in Dec. 20.

De Guindos said Spain depends on financing so measures causing a loss of confidence would have an impact on income and employment, while Linde warned that Spain should continue to correct unbalances caused by the crisis. Endit