Spain's Government upgraded the economic growth outlook for 2014 today as the nation shook off five years of stop-start recession that have pushed the unemployment rate above 26 percent.
Economy Minister luis de Guindos told reporters in Brussels he expected Spain's economy to expand by nearly 1.0 percent in 2014, up from an official growth forecast of 0.7 percent.The prediction is the latest sign of a brighter horizon for the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, plunged by a 2008 property crash into a jobs-wrecking, double-dip recession.The big question now, analysts said, is whether the economy will be strong enough to create jobs for the 5.9 million people unemployed in the last quarter of 2013, more than 26 percent of the workforce.