MADRID, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Spain's unemployment figures for January showed an increase of 90,248 in the number of people out of work, according to data published by the Spanish Ministry of Labor, Migration and Social Security on Tuesday.
This means that the total number of people registered as unemployed in Spain has risen to 3,253,853.
The Ministry attributes the rise in unemployment to the end of many temporary and short-term jobs in the service sector at the end of the Christmas and New Year holiday period and the finish of the January sales.
"A rise in the number of people out of work is habitual in every January over the last 25 years," it said in a press statement.
The statement is supported by the fact that January saw the loss of 90,957 jobs in the service sector, while 9,085 people were made unemployed from the agricultural sector and 2,719 from industries.
In contrast, 9,368 jobs were created in construction, while 3,145 people who had previously been out of work were able to find a job.
January ended with 1,356,980 men and 1,896,873 women out of work, an increase of 3.36 percent in female unemployment. The figures highlighted the precarious nature of temporary work in the service sector.
The high percentage of temporary work which gives instability to the job market was also shown in the fact that 1,764,837 new contracts were signed in January, of which 10.1 percent were for permanent positions, while the remaining were short-term and temporary contracts.
