Spanish unemployment rose 1.7% in September from August, the country’s labour ministry announced on 2 nd of October, clearly indicating that the Eurozone’s fourth largest economy has further to fall.

Jobless claims increased by almost 80,000 in September to 4.71m, the ministry said, below the surge of 96,000 new claims posted in the same month last year, but up 11.3% over the last 12 months.

The Spanish government is currently cutting public spending, seeking to narrow its budget deficit to below 3% of GDP by 2014 from 9.4% last year.

More Spaniards are looking for work elsewhere. Last year, more than 500,000 people left Spain for other countries, according to the country’s National Statistics Institute, up from just over 400,000 in 2010, which was the first year since 1990 that Spain became a net exporter of people.

Around a third of migrants left for the Americas, with another third heading to other European Union countries, the institute data shows.