OECD says Spain's jobless rate nearing 20 pct

Paris, Feb 8 (EFE).- Unemployment in Spain reached 19.5 percent in December, up 4.7 percentage points from the same month in 2008, the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development said in a report released here Monday.

The Spanish jobless rate is the highest in the 30-member OECD, a club that includes the world's wealthiest nations along with some emerging economies such as Mexico and Turkey.

Spain's rate is 10.7 percentage points above the 8.8 percent median unemployment rate for all OECD countries and well in excess of the median figure of 10 percent for the 16-nation euro zone as a whole.

Among OECD members, only Ireland suffered a bigger hike in unemployment than Spain during the 12 months ending in December 2009, with the Irish rate's rising five percentage points to 13.3 percent.

As recently as 2007, the Spanish jobless rate was only 2.5 percentage points higher than the OECD median, but the gap more than doubled by mid-2008 and has grown larger every month since July 2009.