In Spain, the number of people registered as looking for a job rose in January.<br /><br />The total was up by 2.4 percent as employers laid off workers hired for the Christmas holiday season.<br /><br />The good news was that the rate of increase slowed from previous years.<br /><br />That suggests the ailing labour market is finally starting to recovery .. as the government was keen to stress. <br /><br />Employment Secretary Engracia Hidalgo told reporters: “Despite the fact that the unemployment rate has risen, there is a favorable long-term trend – as we’ve been pointing out – regarding hiring, and fewer people registering for unemployment benefits. That matches the recently published economic figures. “<br /><br />Most January layoffs were from Spain’s service sector<br /><br />One sign of improvement last month was that the number of people working in the battered construction sector rose by 3,486. <br /><br />Spain’s economy emerged from a two-year recession in the second half of last year.<br /><br />Consequently many economists raised their economic forecasts and the government is predicting net job creation this year.<br /><br />“These figures are, to some extent, positive, but continue to show a minimal, almost insignificant, step toward a real recovery in the labour market,” said Citi economist Jose Luis Martinez.<br /><br />“We’ve almost certainly touched bottom and are seeing some recovery, but it’s very slow.”<br /><br />One family’s struggle<br /><br />Life remains a struggle even for many Spaniards who do have jobs as wages are often pitifully low. <br /><br />The Reuters news agency spoke to Toni Trigo Domenech, 34, has lived with her 41-year-old husband Majid Mnissar and their three children in her parents’ small, two-bedroom flat in Madrid.<br /><br />They had to move in with her parents after he lost his job and the family was evicted from their rented apartment four years ago.<br /><br />At the time, she was earning just 690 euros a month as an auxiliary nurse for the elderly and, with rent of 650 euro a month, Trigo turned to her family for help. <br /><br />“Either we stopped making the rent payments or we stopped eating. I couldn’t let my children go hungry”, Trigo said.<br /><br />Within a year, Trigo had also lost her job and has been unable to find full-time work since.<br /><br />Today, she works two cleaning jobs which earn her less than 400 euros a month, and is forced to accept help from a food bank. Meanwhile, tempers fray in the tiny, shared flat.<br /><br />“Things are desperate,” she says. “There’s just nothing out there and my husband’s finding the same thing. It’s not easy standing outside a supermarket asking people to donate. But it has helped us put food on the table all these months.”
