Minorca unemployment increases ten per cent in a month

An empty Ciutadella. | Josep Bagur Gomila

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterMahon03/04/2020 12:19

With Balearics employment minister Iago Negueruela having said that the full magnitude of the crisis will not be reflected until April's unemployment figures are released, the situation in Minorca in March was that there were 4,880 people registered as unemployed at the end of the month.

This represented an increase of 18% compared with March last year (747 more unemployed) and was twice the national average increase. Across the Balearics as a whole, there was a 14.6% rise.

Between February and March, the number of people unemployed rose by 450, an increase of 10.2%. There hasn't been this sort of increase since 2008.

The employment ministry stresses that the figures do not include those for employees with 'fijo discontinuo' contracts who have not been called back to work. Nor do the figures include employees affected by ERTE layoffs.

An alternative way of interpreting the March statistics is to consider the number of job seekers. This went up to 11,080 compared with 9,477 in March 2019.