Madrid, AgencyA total of 70,800 fewer people were unemployed in Spain in the third quarter of this year relative to the previous three months, bringing the jobless rate to below 20 percent, according to figures published Friday.
According to the EPA survey, released by Spain's National Statistics Institute, or INE, a total of 4.57 million people were unemployed between July and September and the jobless rate was 19.79 percent, compared to 20.09 percent in the previous quarter.
The ranks of the employed, meanwhile, climbed by 69,900 people to 18.55 million, representing the second quarterly increase since 2007.
According to the EPA, the increase in the number of employed was very similar to the decrease in the number of jobless because the economically active population was virtually unchanged in the third quarter - 23.12 million - compared to the previous three months.
Meanwhile, the number of households in which all the members are without work fell in the third quarter by 15,900, or 1.22 percent, to 1.29 million, according to the EPA figures.
It was the first drop in that figure relative to the previous quarter in three years.
However, compared with the third quarter of 2009, the number of completely jobless households was up by 13.71 percent, or 155,800 households.
The effects of the global recession were aggravated in Spain by the collapse of a long construction and property boom that made the country's economy the envy of most of Madrid's partners in the European Union.
The collapse of the real-estate sector contributed to an unemployment rate that - despite the slight improvement in the third quarter - remains the highest in Europe, with the immigrant population especially hard hit by the country's economic woes.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government has responded to the high unemployment rate by pushing through a recent labor-law overhaul that encourages firms to take on additional personnel.
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