Analyst comments on Spanish jobless figures Spain's unemployment rate climbed to nearly 26 percent in the first quarter of 2014 as millions searched in vain for a job in a sluggish recovery from recession. Despite emerging gingerly from a two-year downturn in mid-2013, official figures Tuesday showed Spain still failing to significantly dent one of the highest jobless rates in the industrialised world. Images and soundbites of Gayle Allard from IE Business School in Madrid.