Spain to invest 1.3 bn euros in vocational training to fight unemployment

Spain will invest 1.3 billion euros ($1.43 billion) in vocational training to fight youth unemployment, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday.

The measure will create 824 new training centres for digital skills, 45,000 vocational training places and 1,500 classrooms for technology and entrepreneurship, he said.

It will be approved at a cabinet meet next week he added, during a Socialist party event in the northern city of Pamplona.

Boosting vocational training is the best way to reduce youth unemployment "which remains one of the main ills of our labour market," Sanchez said.

"We are creating more and better jobs," he added.

The new investment joins the 6.6 billion euros already invested in this area since this government was sworn in for a second term in January 2020, the prime minister added.

The announcement comes ahead of regional and local elections on May 28 and what promises to be closely-fought national elections at the end of the year.

Spain's overall unemployment rate stood at 13.26 percent during the first quarter, up from 12.87 percent the final quarter of 2022, according to national statistics institute INE

But among those aged 16 to 25, the jobless rate stood at 30 percent in the period between January and March.