Unemployment in Grand Canaria doubles; the Canary Islands now have 223,000 people seeking jobs, a 98% increase in 12 months.   

The global crisis’s influence on the local market in the last quarter of 2008. 

Over the last 12 months, 110,800 people joined the unemployment queues of the Canary Islands. One in 10 of the national total unemployed of Spain now lives on the Canary Islands. The EPA of the last quarter of 2008 confirmed the strength of the economic rescission on the archipelago, despite tourism (the main economic driver on the island) loosing just 1.2% of tourist’s numbers.  At the moment in the Canary Islands 21.18% of the active population is now unemployed.  If we compare these numbers to that of a year ago, the numbers of jobseekers increased 110 800, but this was mainly in the last third of 2008, when 40,600 registered. Between October and December the islands lost 30,500 jobs.  In total 70,500 jobs were lost over the year. This means that 8.75% of canary Islanders were directly impacted, a significantly higher number than the main land, where it was just 3.03%.  

Of course the active population has also increased, over the last 12 months, in rose by 31,200 people, giving a total population for the islands of 1,055,500.  This indicates the continued popularity of the islands amongst immigrants, who have not fully thought through what they will do on arrival.  A third of active adults who registered in the islands between October and December 2008 also registered at the job cente. With all these numbers there is evidence that the impact on the canary islands, is significantly higher than that of the rest of Spain, where the unemployment rate increased by just 5%, to a total of 13.91%, compared to 21.18% in the canary islands.

It is not clear what the impact of this on the longer term for the islands will be, however it is expected that if the numbers continue to increase, people will be forced to leave the islands.