market

A product labelled only in Estonian could be sold in Catalonia, but not a product labelled only in Catalan. The new rule authorises the Spanish Government to force all products in Spain to be labelled in at least one official language of the EU, and therefore ban products only labelled in Catalan from being sold within Catalonia. The new European rule aims to authorise Member States to prevent products from being labelled only in a non EU language, such as Chinese or Arabic, but it has consequences at local level. Three Catalan MEPs pushed for an amendment, but it was rejected.

The unemployment rate decreased for the third consecutive month. However, last June the reduction was inferior to that experienced in June 2010. June is traditionally a good month for employment figures, because of the high number of tourism-related new contracts.

The International Monetary Fund wants the Spanish Government to “strengthen” the labour market reform, not give up on spending cuts and restructure the financial system. The same day, the Bank of Spain's Governor, Miguel Angel Fernández Ordóñez asked the Spanish Minister for Economy to be “stricter” on the Autonomous Community government’s deficit reduction. The Catalan Minister for Finance said on several occasions that Catalonia would meet the deficit objective for 2011 if the Spanish Government showed some institutional loyalty and paid the money it legally owes to Catalonia.

In larger cities, the new housing stock is much smaller and in Barcelona it is almost non existent. However, in other towns and rural areas the current stock will not be completely absorbed until 2015, according to a study from CatalunyaCaixa. Prices will stabilise in larger cities and still drop by 10% where the larger stocks are concentrated. The Catalan housing market is now in better shape than in the rest of Spain. In Catalonia the new housing stock decreased by 2,000 units, while in Spain as a whole it increased by 2%.

In total there were 595,342 people registered as unemployed at the end of May in Catalonia. This 1% reduction in relation to the previous month is not good news compared to May 2010, when there were 20,000 fewer people in dole queues. Unemployment decreased throughout Catalonia and in all sectors. In Spain as a whole, there were 4,189,659 people registered as unemployed.

April numbers have broken a three-month continuous trend of unemployment increases. In total there were 601,541 people registered as unemployed at the end of April.

During the first three months of 2011, housing prices dropped by 4.5% compared to the same period in 2010. The end of fiscal advantages for property purchase is the main reason behind this drop. The average square metre price in Catalonia is now set at 2,145.2 euros. These prices have not been seen since early 2006 and represent a 14% drop compared with the historic maximum in 2008.

Unemployment registers in Catalonia increased by 8,658 people in March. One in four jobseekers does not receive any public assistance. In addition, training courses for jobseekers have run out of funding and are waiting for the new budget to be approved by the Catalan Government.

Catalan Juan Ferrando is the personal trainer of the Arsenal’s captain. Ferrando is training up some of the best football players in the English league. He left Catalonia looking for greater working experiences.

Maria Busqué decided to move to Berlin so that she could live off a musician's income, something she found almost impossible in Catalonia. This is a story from the new Catalan emigration.

Compared to 2009, real estate sales increased by 21.4% in Catalonia. The Catalan market’s activity triples the Spanish average. However, forecasts for 2011 are no so optimistic due to the VAT increase and the end of the fiscal deduction for purchasing houses and flats.

The total number of unemployed people in Catalonia is now 589,623. In Spain as a whole, registered unemployment increased by 130,930 people this January. The total number of unemployed people sets a new historical record, with 4.23 million. Traditionally, January is a bad month in terms of unemployment data due to the end of Christmas sales’ hirings.

For the first time in four years December 2010 saw a small decrease in the availability of office space in Barcelona. This indicator would show that the office space market is starting to head towards getting on the recuperation track.

The average price per square meter was 2681 euros at the end of last year. Catalonia has the third most expensive property market within Spain, after the Basque Country and Madrid.

Information published by the Catalan Ministry of Public Works shows that real estate transcations went down 22% in the third trimester after 3 trimesters of consecutive increases.