People wait for the opening of a government employment office in Madrid, Tuesday. The number of people registered as jobless in Spain rose by 1,897, or 0.04 percent, in December compared with the month before, sending the number of unemployed to 4.42m, the Labour Ministry said Tuesday. — Reuters MADRID – Spain's jobless numbers rose for the fifth straight month in December to a new 15-year high, official data showed Tuesday, posing a stiff challenge to the country's new conservative government. The number of registered unemployed rose from the previous month by 1,897 people, or 0.04 percent, to 4.42 million, its highest level since the labour minister started collecting the figures in 1996. The number of jobless was up in December from the same year-ago period by 322,286 people, or 7.86 percent. “The figures for the number of registered unemployed for the month of December confirm the deterioration of the economic situation during the second half of the year,” the labour ministry said in a statement. Spain, once the motor of job creation in the eurozone, has struggled to find jobs for the millions thrown out of work by the collapse of a labour-intensive property bubble in 2008. The Bank of Spain warned last week that the economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2011 as tourism and exports, the drivers of a modest recovery, weakened. The grim report fueled fears that Spain, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, was heading back into recession after the economy posted zero growth in the third quarter of 2011. The new government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has vowed to make make fighting unemployment and fixing the country's finances its top priorities. It plans to present a major labour market reform this month which will change hiring laws and the collective bargaining system to try to encourage the hiring of workers.
