Spanish jobless claims leapt by 3.1 percent in January to more than four million as the country remained mired in its worst recession for decades, the government said Tuesday. The number of people seeking jobless benefits rose by nearly 124,890 from December to January to reach 4.048 million, the sixth straight monthly increase, the labour ministry said. Year-on-year the total was up by more than 21 percent. The rise is 'very negative data' but the tendency is toward 'a slowdown in the progression of unemployment' since March last year, the Employment Ministry said in a statement. The National Statistics Institute on Friday reported that unemployment soared to almost 19 percent in the fourth quarter, one of the highest in the 27-nation European Union and far above the average of 10 percent for the 16 countries that share the eurozone. The Spanish economy contracted 0.3 percent in the third quarter, its fifth straight quarterly decline, even as the entire eurozone officially joined the United States and Japan in emerging from recession during the same period. Spain's economy has proved especially vulnerable to the global credit crunch because growth relied heavily on credit-fuelled domestic demand and a property boom boosted by easy access to loans that has collapsed. 