Jobless statistics for holiday islands Ibiza and Mallorca make for grim reading as Balearics suffers Spain’s biggest fall in employment

THE Balearic Island’s jobless statistics for the first quarter of the year make for grim reading, as the region suffered the biggest fall in employment of any region in Spain.
EPA Active Population Survey figures published this week show the number of people out of work on the islands increased by 49,200 to 111,900 over the period, which covers the first two weeks of the State of Alarm lockdown. This represents an eye-watering 78.5 per cent increase on the previous three-month period.
At the same time 67,100 job positions disappeared in respect to the end of 2019, or a drop of 11.7 per cent.
The numbers mean the Balearics suffered the greatest percentage decline in employment of any region in Spain, and by a very long way.
The second biggest rise in the number of people out of work between the beginning of January and the end March was in La Rioja, at 13.5 per cent.
They also point to how much the islands’ economy has been turned upside down in a short space of time. The stats for the same quarter of 2019 put the archipelago’s jobless increase at 5.4 per cent, or 5,700 people, while employment dropped 2.5 per cent, or 13,100 less positions of work.
The Balearics’ unemployment rate now stands at 18.2 per cent, up from 9.9 per cent at the end of last year.
The service sector accounts for a large chunk of the islands jobless: 74,500 out of 111,900. Another 5,700 of those without a job are from the construction sector.