04/11/2004 00:00
TW
0
Staff Reporter REGIONAL minister for Employment, Cristobal Huguet claimed yesterday that the job market on the Islands was showing positive signs of recovery. The minister's claims followed in the wake of a report on unemployment in October this year, which proved to have fallen by 1.5 percent in respect of previous figures for the same month in 2003.


In spite of this optimistic trend, Hughet emphasised that the Balearic government wants to create suitable programmes to prepare the unemployed for insertion into the labour market. “There was a visible curve throughout 2004 in terms of falling unemployment figures seen against data for 2003”. In October, the number of those out of work compared with the same month in 2003, was 424 less, said the minister.

He insisted that there are enough jobs on the labour market in the Balearics “to absorb the number of unemployed” and he expressed his confidence “in being able to present some significant figures in terms of growth in employment” at the end of this year.

Criticism by the General Workers' Union (UGT) claimed that the year-on-year fall in unemployment in October only reveals that during the last tourist season, there were less employees registered with Social Security.

Manuel Pelards, Union action secretary for UGT, signalled yesterday that the 1.5 percent fall in unemployment in October this year compared to 2003, merely meant that the latest tourist season simply “hadn't gone well”.

Pelarda said that details published yesterday by the Unemployment administration agency (INEM) showed an unemployment increase of 18.5 percent in respect of the previous month of September, and that it is “too simplistic” to point to a trend of falling unemployment by quoting the fact that there were 424 less people without work in October 2004 than there were in October 2003.

Huguet retorted that the data in his possession showed that indeed, “there were more people with contracts linked to Social Security than there had been the previous year”.

He also pointed out that the Balearics has the highest rate of employment of any of Spain's regions.