169´000 people are out of work in the Balearics

Obviously, the active population figures are much higher than the registered unemployed data because the figures take into account all those people who are no longer entitled to social benefit or job support or have decided to sign off and join the growing black market.

Pelarda claimed that nearly 19 percent of the unemployed are working on the back market in the Balearics. Over the past year, 5'200 more people have lost their jobs in the region and local union bosses were highly critical of the government's policies yesterday.

Manuel Pelarda, UGT General Workers' Union Secretary for Employment, said that these latest figures show that the policies to combat the crisis which have been put into action by regional and central governments, have clearly failed.

Pelarda said that these figures represent a record high when the governments have been claiming that the economy is back on the right track.
This week, the IMF actually advised the central government to ease up on its austerity measures because they were doing nothing to create jobs, in fact the contrary and these figures prove the IMF right. Looking at the overall picture, unemployment in Spain has jumped to a record 27.2 percent, fuelling a European debate over whether to ditch austerity policies and switch to reviving economic growth.

More than 6 million Spaniards were out of work in the first three months of this year, raising the rate in the euro zone's fourth biggest economy to a level unseen since records began in the 1970s.

Joblessness has grown for seven quarters in a row, leaving more Spaniards without work than the entire population of Denmark, and the percentage rate now matches that of Greece, which is in the grips of a full-blown depression.

Spain has slipped in an out of recession for the past five years. In the first quarter more businesses and individuals went into bankruptcy and default, further driving up bad loan rates in Spain's troubled banking system and hitting profits at three of the country's top five lenders, Santander, Caixabank and Sabadell.

The grim economic picture contrasts sharply with financial markets. There, waves of liquidity from around the globe have brought down Spain's borrowing costs and all but banished last year's fears that a budget crisis would force Madrid to seek an international sovereign bailout. “These figures are worse than expected and highlight the serious situation of the Spanish economy as well as the shocking decoupling between the real and the financial economy,” strategist at Citi in Madrid Jose Luis Martinez said.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy imposed drastic spending cuts and tax increases last year, trying to bring a huge budget deficit under control, in line with the euro zone's policy of fighting its debt crisis with austerity. However, the belt-tightening has aggravated the Spanish economy's problems.

With the entire euro zone heading into a second year of recession, top EU economics official Olli Rehn and his boss European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have begun to push for more flexibility on public deficits.

Others, including European Central Bank policymakers, disagree, saying easing up on austerity would not mean economic recovery. Nevertheless, senior sources said the ECB is closer to lowering interest rates than at any time since it last cut them in July 2012, and is likely to shave a quarter percentage point off its main rate next week.