Unemployment is one of the greatest concerns within Spanish society. As shown in the graph below, it is a big problem in the southern regions of the country, like Andalucía, Canarias or Extremadura, especially in the least industrialized areas. Unemployment in these regions was higher than 30% in 2014.
Although unemployment in the northern regions such as Navarra or País Vasco is much lower than in the rest of the country, the figures are still very worrying: around 15% in 2014.
After having reached a minimum of around 8% in 2007, with the Spanish economic crisis that began in 2008 the rate of unemployment grew quickly reaching almost 26% in 2013. In regions like Andalucía, the rate exceeded 35%.
It seems, however, that there was an iflection point in 2013 or 2012 in some regions and that the unemployment rate has started to slowly fall down.
It seems there is a correlation between the unemployment rate and the percentage of population who find it difficult to make ends meet. As shown in the scatterplot below, regions with the highest unemployment rates are also those with the highest percentage of population who declare they have difficulties or great difficulties to make ends meet every month.