News Summary Blog 3

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2013/05/06/madrid/1367829709.html

1.  The article is a basic summary of unemployment rates in Madrid during the month of April compared to the previous month and year. Unemployment has gone down in April by .48% less than it was in March. Though, unemployment is still significantly higher this April than it was last. since last April unemployment has risen by 37,713 people or 7.10%. Though nationally, unemployment is at the lowest its been in April since 2007 with a .91% increase in employment. Of the 569,030 people unemployed in Madrid 287,710 of them are women with the remaining 281,320 being men. The two sectors that are facing the most unemployment at the moment are the construction industry and the agriculture sector. The article then goes on to mention unemployment rates among foreign residents. Unemployment rates in this group are much lower than those of Spanish citizens in Madrid. From March to April unemployment among foreigners fell 1.29%. There is a slight difference in the major sectors experiencing high unemployment. Foreigners are also experiencing unemployment in the construction and agriculture sectors, but are also experiencing the most unemployment in services sector. During April 131,866 people received some kind of benefits. Right now the average amount received per month is 881.2 euros per month which totals to more than 336.1 million euros per year.

2.  This relates to class because we were talking about immigration and emigration last week. Due to Spain's current economy I was a little confused as to why immigration was still so high. This article seems to show that foreigners are not having as hard of a time finding work as Spanish citizens are. This is very interesting to me and I would like to know why this is. I would also like to have known where the foreign residents that are able to attain jobs are coming from. These numbers could be what is contributing to the immigration rate in Spain regardless of the current economy.

3.  There is no specific cause of this situation mentioned in the article, but one can assume it is due to the current economic crisis. A solution I can think of for the problem is to create more jobs for Spanish residents. This would save money also considering the government is paying 336.1 million euros a year in benefits to foreign residents as well as citizens. I think the government could implement some kind of policy to improve this situation, but I don't know what that policy would look like, or if that could even be done.