Unemployment up over 30% compared with last year

The unemployment rate in Catalonia stood at 30.2% higher this year compared with May 2019. There are now also 165,278 fewer jobs than a year ago.

A total of 483,149 people are now without work, after 15,339 further people registered at the unemployment office in the month of May 2020. 

The jump from April’s jobless rate to May’s was a rise of 3.28%.

 

Meanwhile, Social Security registration in Catalonia rose by 4,622 people in May compared to April.

Such unemployment figures have not been seen since May 2016, when 470,205 people were registered with the unemployment office.

In Spain as a whole, the month-on-month increase in jobseekers was 26,573 people, 0.69% more than in April. This brought the total number of unemployed in the country to 3,857,776. Compared to a year ago, a rise of 25.3% has been, counting 778,285 people.

Catalonia is also the region with the highest increase in unemployment in absolute terms, followed by Madrid, with 14,355 people, and the Canary Islands, with 6,093 people.