Acting Employment Minister, Fátima Báñez, said today that if Spain has political stability and the new government continues to push through reforms and measures to stimulate growth and emplyment in Spain, "we can grow around 3% this year, exceeding the Government's own prediction".
Báñez (pictured), who met the President of the Federation of Associations of Self-Employed & Freelance Workers (ATA), Lorenzo Amor, in Córdoba today, said the latest OECD figures have led her to revise her prediction for Spain's economic growth in 2016 to 2.8%, but adjust her prediction for 2017 down by two tenths to 2.3%.
The Minister said that the figures from the first quarter "reflect of the strength of Spain's recovery" which makes me believe that with political stability and fiscal reform the country could grow even more than the figures set out by the OECD.
"This means that this year and over the next four years we could create between 400,000 and 500,000 new jobs per year, which is the main national objective", said Bañez, who believes Spain could have 20 million people in employment by the year 2020.
In her opinion, this is possible because the Government "is already making it happen" and has managed to "get back 1.1 million jobs lost during the recession".
"We are achieving intense levels of job creation, and we will continue to do so with political stability and confidence in the economy", refelcted the Minister, who pointed out that the self-employed and freelancers had been "the leading protagonists of the recovery".
She reiterated that employment in Spain "began with the self-employed", and praised the fact that, after four difficult years, there are now 110,000 more self-employed people than there were in December 2011, which demonstrates that "they are joining the recovering economy in a massive way."
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