Editorial: Jobless rate

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was in hot water yesterday when he claimed that unemployment was no longer a problem  in Spain. Tell that to the five million people across the country who are still jobless despite Rajoy´s alleged “economic miracle.” Now, his comments about the jobless rate were quickly seized upon by other political parties including the socliats who claimed that Rajoy was living in a fantasy world. And to some extent they are right. The unemployment situation in Spain is scandalous. Spain has one of the highest rates of unemployment of any country in the European Union. Things have started to improve; the Balearics have seen the jobless rate fall quite dramatically but there are still 80,000 people without a job. However, Rajoy´s economic track record, apart from unemployment is relatively good. Spain avoided a bailout from the European Union and the economy now appears to be back on track. Not bad for a country who many thought would follow Greece and need European Union aid to balance the books. The state of the Spanish economy is one of the key campaigning tools of Rajoy´s Partido Popular. But his comments on unemployment will have rather opened him up for attack from the opposition. Rajoy´s government has promised to tackle unemployment but they will have a long way to go. Until the jobless rate falls to an acceptable level I don´t think Rajoy can trumpet his economic record.