Spain’s Jobless Rate Tops 24%

Spain's statistics agency says the country's unemployment surpassed 24% and a record 5.64 million people last month.

The agency figures nearly 366,000 people in Spain lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2012. Adds Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, "Spain is in a crisis of huge proportions."

On Monday the government is expected to officially confirm that the country has slipped into its second recession in two years. Earlier this week the British government said the U.K. had fallen back into its second recession since 2009.

Spain's central bank estimated last week that the gross domestic product, which shrank 0.3% in the final three months of 2011, contracted by 0.4% in the first quarter of 2012. Analysts say Spain's woes are multiplied by sharp government spending cuts at reducing its public deficit to 5.3% of GDP this year from 8.5% in 2011.

Earlier this week Standard & Poor's Ratings Services downgraded Spain's sovereign debt rating two steps to BBB+ and warned that the country's gross domestic product would shrink 1.5% this year.