Spanish jobless total officially tops 5 million For the first time ever, Spain has over five million people registered as unemployed. The Labour Ministry said there was an increase of almost 60,000 looking for work last month compared to January; that is a 1.2 percent rise. Traditionally South Americans used to flock to Spain for jobs - now it is the reverse, as Ecuadorian Juan Aguirre explained: "Nowadays, there are many people in a really bad situation, everybody is unemployed. I'm a foreigner, so I'm planning to go home, there's no work here, there is nothing. It doesn't make sense for me to be here spending all my money. I'd rather be in my country. That five million figure is out of total of 16 million in the Spanish workforce. But in reality the situation is even worse as there are another one million people who are not officially registered with the authorities as unemployed. That extra one million is revealed by the latest labour market survey carried out by Spain's national statistics office. More about: Spain, Spanish debt, Spanish economy, Unemployment