4,209 new unemployed in Catalonia in February due to third wave of pandemic

BarcelonaOn Monday the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, advanced a diagnosis already quite common of late: February is again a bad month for the labour market. Catalonia added 4,209 new unemployed during the second month of 2021 and the total number of unemployed now stands at 512,290, according to data published on Tuesday by the Ministry of Labour. In Spain, the figure increased by 44,436 and, for the first time since 2016, there are over four million unemployed.

The year already began with a reality check as Catalonia once again exceeded half a million unemployed in January, a threshold that was crossed in 2010 with the financial crisis and that took six years to leave behind. The pandemic left 110,000 more people unemployed in Catalonia and a trail of 75,000 jobs destroyed in the first year of health emergency, in addition to the thousands of workers who have intermittently been on furlough.