Unemployment in Spain continue to rise in 2011, according to European Commission Efe - Brussels - 21/01/2011

"With an unfavorable economic environment, unemployment (in Spain) is intended to continue to grow from the current high levels, albeit at a slower pace," says the document. Thus, the Commission predicts an unemployment rate of 20.1% in 2010 and 20.2% in 2011 to begin to decline in 2012 to 19.2%.

The report recalls that Spain is the EU member country with the largest number of unemployed workers-about 4.75 million, and the highest unemployment rate.

It is also the only one of the six largest states of the EU, with Germany, France, UK, Italy and Poland, where unemployment increased in the last two months of last year.

Also, the prospects of finding a job worse than 2% in Spain in November and December over the same period last year, while they increased at overall EU level.

The report says more than 900,000 young people under 25 were unemployed in Spain last November, 43.6%, well above other countries levels.

On the positive side, Spain, together with Germany, the only one of the six largest EU states where labor supply increased in November and December, 1.1%, with more than 154,000 new jobs in relation to the two last months of 2009.

In the case of Germany, Europe's largest economy, the study noted that its labor market is in "good shape" thanks to lower unemployment, which stood at 6.7% at year end, and above all to an increase in labor supply.

For its part, France "continues to stabilize, slowly," although it has been a slight increase in their unemployment rate, which rose 9.7% between July and October, to 9.8% in the last two months of 2010.

Unemployment rose in the middle of the 27 member states over the past two months, especially in Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Estonia and Bulgaria, where it fell between 0.4 and 1.3%.