Spain's jobless drama laid bare as IKEA receives 20,000 applications in 2 days for 400 posts
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}People queue to enter an unemployment registry office in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013. Official figures show the number of people registered as unemployed in Spain fell by a little under 2,500 in November, the first drop during the month since the current system was introduced 1997. The decline provided further evidence that the Spanish economy might be picking up after more than two years of recession, which only ended in the third quarter. Still, Spain is still suffering from mass unemployment, with around 4.8 million people out of work. That represents around 26 percent of its total workforce. Only Greece has a higher unemployment rate in the 17-country eurozone. (AP Photo/Paul White) (The Associated Press)
An IKEA shop in Spain says it has received 20,000 applications for just 400 jobs, an unprecedented rush that crashed its computer servers and illustrated the desperation the country's 6 million unemployed people face.
Company spokesman Rodrigo Sanchez said Wednesday the online applications received since Monday were for jobs as store workers in a shop to be opened next year outside the eastern city of Valencia.
He said the most applications the company had received before in Spain were 50,000 in southern Jerez, but that was over a period of a month.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Official figures show Spain may be beginning to emerge from a more than two-year recession but the government admits it will take years to bring down the 26 percent unemployment rate.