Spanish Jobless Rate Hits Record After Rajoy’s First Year

Spanish unemployment rose to a record in the final quarter of 2012 as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government imposed the deepest budget cuts in the country’s democratic history.

The number of jobless approached 6 million people, or 26.02 percent, from 25.01 percent in the previous three months, the National Statistics Institute in Madrid said today. That matched the median forecast of 10 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Spain is now home to a third of the euro region’s unemployed.