Spain’s unemployment rate could rise to 27.1% by 2014 The Spanish central bank forecast on Tuesday that the eurozone's fourth biggest economy will contract even more this year than in 2012, but would then benefit from "a modest rebound in 2014.” The Bank of Spain estimated that business activity would shrink by 1.5 percent in 2013, on the heels of a 1.37 percent contraction last year, and then expand by 0.6 percent in 2014.
It also forecast that Spanish unemployment, among the eurozone's highest, would rise to 27.1 percent of the workforce by the end of this year, but would finish 2014 at 26.8 percent.