Spanish Business News

MADRID (Dow Jones)--Unemployment in Spain is unlikely to top five million this year despite anticipated "bad" first-quarter data that will be released Friday, Labor Minister Valeriano Gomez said Thursday.

Speaking in a TV interview, Gomez said first-quarter numbers "will be a bad piece of data," but didn't provide more details.

Fourth-quarter unemployment stood at 20.3% in Spain, up from 19.8% in the third quarter, and the highest level since the second quarter of 1997, when it was at 20.7%. The third-quarter decline had been the first since the rate started a continued rise in the second quarter of 2007, from well below 10%.

Overall, 4.7 million people were unemployed in the fourth quarter in Spain, which has the highest unemployment rate in the developed world.

Gomez also said he remains optimistic that his government will achieve a labor reform deal with trade unions and business representatives, even as the latest deadline for such a deal before the Easter holiday was passed. He added that new hurdles for a deal have appeared, slowing the negotiation process.