Spain’s property crash means its economy will take longer to recover from the economic crisis than European neighbours France and Germany, EU Economic Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Friday.

“The causes of the economic decline in Spain, and in particular the situation in the housing sector, will make the recovery slower,” he told Spain’s Radio Cadena Ser.

“It is not so easy as in other cases, where we go from day to night, from a very deep recession to figures of positive growth.”

In this post I would just like to ask a very simple question. What is the real rate of growth of unemployment in Spain? Are things improving, getting worse, or simply staying the same? Now, before you jump to too many conclusions on this it is important to remember that in the world of economic analysis there are lies, damn lies, and then there are press releases.

Well, Variant Perception’s Jonathan Tepper certainly doesn’t think so, and since his latest report on the Spanish banking sector cites me extensively and explicitly, I guess I don’t either.

Spain had the mother of all housing bubbles. To put things in perspective, Spain now has as many unsold homes as the US, even though the US is about six times bigger. Spain is roughly 10% of the EU GDP, yet it accounted for 30% of all new homes built since 2000 in the EU. Most of the new homes were financed with capital from abroad, so Spain’s housing crisis is closely tied in with a financing crisis.

Confidence among business professionals has surged, suggesting the recession is at an end, a survey has said.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants’ index of business confidence rose to 4.8 at the end of June, from -28.2 in March, the biggest rise for two years.

However, chief executive Michael Izza warned against “underestimating” the challenges ahead for businesses.

The institute predicts the UK economy will grow by 0.5% in the third quarter.

According to an article which appeared in the Spanish newspaper Expansion this morning, one in five Spanish mortgages is now considered as being high risk and liable to become “non performing”.

The mortgages at greatest risk are naturally those contracted after 2005 where the loan to valuation was over 80% of the total. In 2006 and 2007, according to data from the bank of Spain, LtVs were over 80% in 17.7% of the mortgages granted, since prices are now heading back towards the 2005 level, we can easily conclude that something in the region of one in five Spanish mortgages are now high risk.

The Spanish government announced Thursday it will pay EUR 420 a month to jobless workers who have lost their rights to benefits.

Around 340,000 people are eligible to benefit from the measure, which will cost the government EUR 642 million, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega told a news conference.

Spain, which has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union, entered recession in late 2008.

Spanish consumer prices Spain fell 1.4 percent in July from 12 months earlier in the fifth consecutive monthly decline, official data said Wednesday, raising further fears of deflation.

The figure released by national statistics body INE confirmed its provisional estimate published at the end of July.

In March, Spain posted its first 12-month drop in prices since INE began tracking inflation in 1961, with a 0.1-percent decline that month.

The number of people out of work in the UK has risen to its highest level since 1995, official figures have shown.

Unemployment increased by 220,000 to 2,435,000 in the three months to June, taking the jobless rate to 7.8%.

Claims for unemployment benefit were the highest in 12 years, increasing by 24,900 from June to 1.58 million.

Average earnings, excluding bonuses, grew at their slowest rate since records began in 2001, the Office for National Statistics said.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has said it expects to see growth returning to the global economy next year as it kept interest rates on hold at 1%.

The bank said that economic activity is likely to remain weak this year.

But while the outlook was uncertain, it said that there were signs the recession was “bottoming out” and that “positive growth” would return in 2010.

The Bank of England’s rate-setters have decided to pump another £50bn of new money into the economy in their programme of quantitative easing.

It will take their total spending to £175bn, unexpectedly going over the £150bn set aside by the chancellor.

In a statement, they said that the UK recession “appears to have been deeper than previously thought”.

The rate-setters also decided to keep interest rates unchanged at their historic low of 0.5% for a fifth month.

Industrial production in Spain plunged 16.5 percent in June from the same month last year, official data showed Wednesday, deepening its decline in one of the EU countries worst-hit by the crisis.

It follows a seasonally adjusted fall of 20.5 percent in May, 19.7 percent in April and 24.7 percent in March, which was the sharpest drop since such figures were first calculated in 1992.

The number of unemployed in recession-hit Spain declined in July for the third month running, the government said on Tuesday.

The number of job seekers was down 0.58 percent, or 20,794, in July from the previous month, the employment ministry said.

This follows a fall of 55,250 in June and 24,741 in May, which was the first drop in 14 months.

New car registrations in Spain fell 10.9 percent in July from the same time last year, a decline that was less steep than previous months due to the introduction of a government subsidy for new vehicle purchases, industry data showed Monday.

A total of 108,222 vehicles were registered during the month, the first time since July 2008 they have passed the 100,000 mark, Spanish car manufacturers’ association ANFAC said in a statement.

Eurozone unemployment hit 9.4% in June – the highest in 10 years and another sign of the economic slowdown.

The number of jobless grew by 158,000 during the month, taking the total number of unemployed in the area using the euro to 14.9 million.

The figures came as separate data showed that inflation had declined more than expected in the eurozone in July.

A third of European workers are “very concerned” that they could lose their jobs as result of the financial crisis, an EU survey suggests.

The EU said six in 10 Europeans felt the worst of the economic crisis was to come, and only 28% said it had passed.

Baltic countries felt most pessimistic about the economy, while Swedes and Danes said the downturn had peaked.

Spain’s trade deficit narrowed sharply by 59 percent in May compared to the same period last year as imports dropped due to the country’s sharp economic downturn, the industry ministry said Wednesday.

The trade deficit – the gap by which a country’s imports exceed its exports – reached EUR 3.27 billion in May, it said in a statement.

Imports fell 34.3 percent during the month over the previous year to EUR 16.16 billion while exports dropped 22.4 percent to EUR 12.89 billion.

UK unemployment rose by a record 281,000 to 2.38 million, in the three months to May, the Office for National Statistics has said.

The jobless rate increased to 7.6%, the highest in more than 10 years.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefit increased by 23,800 in June to 1.56 million, which was less than analysts had forecast.

Businesses have been cutting jobs as they seek to reduce costs in the wake of the global downturn.

Sales of new cars across Europe rose for the first time in 14 months in June, buoyed by a number of national scrappage schemes, figures have shown.

New registrations across 28 European nations rose by 2.4% last month from a year ago, the European Automotive Manufacturers’ Association said.

Germany, one of the first countries to pay drivers to trade in old cars, led the gains, with registrations up 41%.

Unicaja has more than 900 branches compared to Caja Jaén’s 52

The Chairman of Unicaja, the largest building society in Andalucía, has released a joint statement with the chief of the region’s smallest, Caja Jaén, announcing they are holding talks on merging. It’s been announced as a private operation with no external funding and will be taken to both companies’ boards of management for discussion, with a view to leaving the way open to other building societies to merge with the new company at a later date.

Spanish Consumer prices fell by 1.0 percent in the 12 months to June, inflation data showed on Thursday, the fourth monthly decline running.

The final data published by national statistics body INE was in line with a first estimate at the end of June.

In May prices were 0.9 percent lower over 12 months, in April they were 0.2percent lower and in March they were down 0.1 percent.