Spain’s unemployment rate dropped in 2018 as the country’s services sector, which includes all-important tourism, generated more jobs, official figures showed Tuesday.
At the end of 2018, it stood at 14.45%, down from 16.5% at end-2017, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said.
That brings the number of jobless people in Spain to 3.3 million.
But even though unemployment has dropped since 2013 as Spain emerges from economic crisis, the country still has the eurozone’s second highest jobless rate after Greece.
Young people are especially hard-hit.
The growth in temporary jobs was also higher than that of permanent posts in 2018, INE said.
Spain’s services sector saw close to 430,000 jobs created in 2018, it added.
That includes tourism, which accounted for 11.8% of Spain’s GDP last year.
Spain saw another record year in terms of foreign visitor numbers in 2018, even if growth in sales slowed as sun-soaked competitors like Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia recovered.
