Spain Jobless Reaches Post-Franco Record Amid Austerity: Economy

Spanish unemployment rose to the highest on record after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy made it easier to fire workers while implementing the steepest budget cuts in the country’s recent democratic history.

Unemployment, already the highest in the European Union, rose to 24.6 percent in the second quarter from 24.4 percent in the prior three months, the National Statistics Institute said in Madrid today. That was the largest proportion since at least 1976, the year after dictator Francisco Franco died, prompting the transition to democracy. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of nine economists was 24.7 percent.