It should be no surprise by now that I view the Spanish economy favourably compared to the other three of the 'big 4' in the euro area, Italy and France in particular.
The labour market certainly continues to do well. A fresh report for February shows a decline in unemployment of 13,500 while consensus had looked for a drop of 2,900. In January unemployment rose by 78,000. This series is not seasonally adjusted so we compared YTD instead. In 2015, unemployment rose by 64,000 in Jan-Feb compared with 111,000 in 2014 and 191,000 in 2013. A notable improvement.
The employment series on the other hand is seasonally adjusted, and it shows an increase of 84,000 or 0.5% m/m. This translates into 2.8% y/y; in comparison US nonfarm payrolls are up by 2.4% from a year ago.
I expect the Spanish economy to grow at least 2% this year - and possibly closer to 2.5% due to added tailwinds from weaker currency and energy prices.