Balearics lead big fall in unemployment rate

Registered unemployment in Spain continued its two-year fall in March, as 60,214 Spaniards left the jobseekers list, the Employment Ministry said in its monthly report, leaving the total at 4.45 million officially unemployed people.
The Employment Ministry figure, the best March data point on record and one of two commonly used to assess the state of unemployment in Spain, has now fallen by 343,927 people since March 2014.
The seasonally-adjusted figure is close to the headline number: 63,368.
In percentage terms, unemployment fell in broadly equal measure across agriculture, industry, construction and the services sector.
Sixteen of the 17 Spanish regions saw an improvement, notably in the Balearics, where the number of people without work fell by –6.48% in March.
Youth unemployment, and unemployment among those who have not previously worked, rose by 0.78 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.
The number of new contracts, both full- and part-time, and the number of people registered to pay social security also continued to rise.
More than 160,579 people registered to pay social security in March, also a record figure for the third month of the year. The seasonally-adjusted figure was 104,360.  The rate of change in Spanish unemployment figures is accelerating towards the creation of more jobs.