Unemployment continues to rise in the Canary Islands

Unemployment continues to rise in Spain and the Canary Islands and last month (September) there was an increase of 0.05% over the previous month of August, bringing the total number of unemployed people in the Canary Islands to 288,813 according to data released today by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security. Compared with August 2011, the islands have seen a rise of 14.61% in unemployment with a total of 36,823 more unemployed than a year ago. Nationally, Spain as a whole has seen unemployment rise in September by 79,645 people (+1.72%) now totalling 4,705,279 people unemployed. This is a rise of 478,535 people (+11.32%).

By provinces, unemployment rose in September in the province of Las Palmas by 264 people (+0.17%) and by 117 people (+0.09%) in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Santa Cruz now has a total of 135,110 unemployed people, 16,608 more than in September 2011 (+14,01%) and Las Palmas currently has 153,703 unemployed people, 20,215 more than a year ago (+15,14%). By sector, the islands have 202,876 registered unemployed in the service sector, 50,541 in construction, 13,449 in industry, 5,618 in agriculture and 16,329 in the group of applicants with no previous job. By gender, 143,409 of the unemployed people are men and 145,404 are women. Of these, 23,138 are under 25 years (11,812 males and 11,326 females).

Among the foreigners living in the Canaries, unemployment decreased by 102 people in September, (-0.42%) totalling 24,381 unemployed foreigners (8,299 are European Union citizens and 16,082 from outside the EU). Year on year figures show that there are currently 1,020 more foreign job seekers than a year ago, representing an increase of 4.37%.

Last month was 46,851 work contracts were signed in the Canaries, 1,235 more than in August (+2,71%). Of these contracts, 41,827 were temporary and 5,024 were permanent.