Spain's unemployment hits 20 percent

Spain's unemployment hit 20 percent last quarter and increase from the previous quarter, placing Spain second amongst the European Union for unemployment.

The first quarter reports are in and Spain's unemployment rose to 20 percent according to CNN. Spain saw their unemployment rise from 19.4 percent the quarter before and that means that now 4.6 million Spaniards are without work. The 20 percent puts Spain behind Latvia with the second highest unemployment in the European Union. This is also on the heals of Standard & Poor's downgrading of their credit rating. Remaining optimistic the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told Parliament this past week that he felt that the unemployment had reached its peak and that they would start to see a decline. Still, S&P disagreed saying, "We now believe that the Spanish economy's shift away from credit-fuelled economic growth is likely to result in a more protracted period of sluggish activity than we previously assumed." The average unemployment amongst the European Union was 9.6 percent and remained unchanged from teh previous quarter. Netherlands had the lowest unemployment rate amongst the 27 EU countries at 4.1 percent followed by Australia at 4.2 percent. For Spain though it was a reliance upon a housing market that went bust along with the taxes that went along with the housing market that Spain relied upon heavily.