Self Employed in Spain starting to suffer in economic crisis

Self Employed in Spain starting to suffer in economic crisis
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By h.b. - Oct 5, 2008 - 12:00 PM

Minister for Tax and the Economy, Pedro Solbes - Archive Photo EFE

300 self-employed people are giving up their businesses every day in Spain.

Autonomous self-employed workers in Spain are beginning to note the economic crisis, with latest figures from the National Federation of Autonomous Workers ATA saying that more than 300 a day have given up their business over the past five months.

The Federation says in a report, that the worst ‘is still to come’.
Construction has been the most affected sector, losing some 22,358 workers over the first nine months of the year, some 4%. Agriculture follows with a 3% loss of 9,766 workers.
By regions, La Rioja has been most affected, followed by Navarra and the Valencia Region.

Minister for Tax and the Economy, Pedro Solbes, speaking to the El Mundo newspaper has admitted that ‘the rapid increase in bad debt is something worrying’. It comes as the numbers of banks and savings banks clients who cannot meet their mortgage payments continues to increase.

Solbes says he has called on the Bank of Spain to be ‘very rigorous’ in the supervision of banks, although he repeats that he thinks the Spanish financial system has the capacity to face the crisis, although ‘it would be bold to say that we are protected from everything’.

Meanwhile the leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, speaking at the PP congress in Cantabria, has described the 2009 budgets as ‘a lost opportunity’.

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