Spain's Third-Quarter Employment Hits Record High as Jobless Rate Edges Up to 10.18 Percent
Spain's National Statistics Institute (INE) published on October 27 the third-quarter 2026 Labour Force Survey (EPA): employment in Spain rose by 73,600 to a record 22,852,600 people, with 465,500 jobs added over the past 12 months.
Unemployment rose in the same quarter by 95,900 to 2,591,200, taking the jobless rate to 10.18 percent, 0.31 points higher than in the previous quarter but 0.27 points below a year earlier. The Ministry of Economy assessed it as the lowest third-quarter unemployment rate since 2007, while the INE figures also show the quarterly rise in unemployment was the largest for a third quarter since 2020.
The active population grew by 169,500 to a record 25,443,800, with an activity rate of 59.52 percent.
The EPA is Spain's main employment survey, based on a quarterly sample of some 65,000 households and published by the INE; it is the core reference for government, markets and researchers assessing the labour market.
Source: National Statistics Institute, Spain
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：一处就业服务中心。Robert Wade 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 2.0。 / Photo: A job centre. Photo by Robert Wade , Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
