Spain is one of the European countries that are bearing the brunt of the pandemic outbreak. Now the country is bracing for an unprecedented level of unemployment caused by the coronavirus economic crisis. The recent data revealed that in April, a great number of companies went bankrupt. Some economists fear that figures in May could be much worse. According to the official report of the Ministry of Labor, the unemployment rate in April reached 7.97%, or 3.8 million people, adding 282,891 people seeking unemployment benefits. In comparison, in March, the number of registered jobless people jumped by 9.31%. The growing unemployment level is a huge burden for the state budget. The government spends more than €4.5 billion on unemployment benefits every month. Experts raise concerns on how long the Spanish authorities will be able to cope with such a financial load. Currently, near 5.2 million citizens in Spain are fully or partially dependent on unemployment benefits. Notably, jobless claims in April soared by 20.7% compared to the same period last year. At the end of the first quarter, Spain's economy, the fourth-largest in the eurozone, shrank by 5.2% year-on-year. This was the steepest fall since comparable records began in 1995. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Spain's GDP grew by 0.4%.
