Spain jobless rate drops for fifth month

Spain basked in a summer jobs boom in July when the number of people registered as being unemployed dropped for the fifth month in a row, government figures showed Friday. The number of jobless benefit claimants fell from the previous month by 64,866 people, or 1.36 percent, to 4.70 million in July, according to raw figures issued in a report by the Labour Ministry. It was the first time the number of registered job seekers had declined for five months in a row since 2007, the report highlighted. When the figures were corrected to smooth out seasonal variations, however, the number of claimants rose from the previous month by 7,591 people, or 0.16 percent, to 4.88 million in July. The government and financial markets usually focus on the raw figures rather than the seasonally adjusted data. "The unemployment figures continue to show a positive trend," said Spain's state secretary for employment, Engracia Hidalgo. Spain's official unemployment rate fell to 26.26 percent in the second quarter of this year from a record 27.16 percent in the previous quarter, according to a broader, household survey conducted by the National Statistics Institute. It was the first such decline in two years. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government is forecasting a jobless rate of 26.7 percent in 2014 and 25 percent in 2015. Spain, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, is still struggling to overcome the aftermath of a decade-long property bubble that imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and sending debt levels soaring.