Spain Gets Awful Battering in Dreadful New Figures including Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca areas

SPAIN has got an awful battering in some dreadful new figures including the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca areas of the country.

The good news is that it is not the number of people dying from the coronavirus, which earlier today (May 4) fell for the first time to levels before the State of Alarm was introduced in mid-March.

The bad news is that statistics have been published which show that production in Spanish factories has fallen to its lowest level since December 2008, when the country started to feel the heat of the recession caused by the banking crisis.

April’s details reflect the lockdown measures caused by the State of Alarm, with record falls in factory output along with new orders and purchasing.

The IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) of manufacturing companies sank to 30.8 in April from 45.7 in March, which is the biggest drop in one month in Spain since the records started in February 1998.

Paul Smith from IHS Markit said: “Records were broken across a who range of numbers but of biggest concern were those concerning jobs.

“Job losses are happening at a rate only beaten during the financial crisis as firms are seriously worried about the long-term effect of the pandemic on their businesses.”

Smith added: “This is leading to concerns that when the recovery starts after the State of Alarm restrictions are fully lifted, it might prove to be a harder journey to return to pre-pandemic levels of production and profitability than some people might believe.”

The gloomy prognosis comes as no surprise as Spain recently declared that the economy shrank by the widest ever margin on record in the first three months of 2020.

The better news is that some mall businesses have been allowed to return this week across the country as part of the first phase of easing the lockdown.