Malaga province, which includes the Costa del Sol, leads the rise in unemployment in Spain

Malaga province, including the Costa del Sol, has seen the largest increase in employment in Spain for October. A total of 3,155 people have joined the ranks of those receiving social security payments due to the closure of hotels and other seasonal businesses. This figure represents 43% of all new unemployed in Andalucía, which is the worst hit region in Spain. The rise also contrasts with October last year, which was the first in Malaga’s history in which it managed to reduce unemployment.

Other Andalusian provinces have also registered significant increases in unemployment in October: Cadiz was second in the national ranking (+ 2,815), and Granada saw a rise of 1,193). Huelva and Jaén remain in the middle of the table with discrete climbs (+ 593 and + 387), while Almeria, Cordoba and Seville managed to slightly reduce their number of unemployed (by respectively, -363, + 190 and -189).

Malaga now has more than 130,000 unemployed, as was the case at the beginning of summer. Specifically, October closes with 132,027 people registered as job seekers. Of these, more than 95,000 people belong to the services branch, which has contributed the most to the rise in unemployment last month (+ 2,771). Another 13,000 people come from the construction sector; about 5,800, from industry (+ 179) and 3,127, from agriculture (+ 67). The group without previous employment includes 14,786 unemployed, 230 more than in October.

In the three months that unemployment has been rising, Malaga has added almost 7,000 new unemployed people. This escalation has diminished the year-on-year advantage that the province had accumulated in terms of unemployment. Now the difference is 6,000 less unemployed than a year ago, when in the middle of summer it was almost 10,000.