Spain Unemployment Rate Hits New Record in First Quarter

Spain’s unemployment rate rose to a new record of 27.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, with 6.2 million people out of work, data from the National Statistics Institute showed on Thursday.

Unemployment stood at 26 percent in the last three months of 2012 while economists’ polled by Reuters forecast the number of people out of work in Spain would rise by half a percentage point to 26.5 percent.