Tens of thousands take to the streets in Spain in May Day demos

(MADRID) - Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Spain on Friday in May Day rallies marked by anger over the economic crisis, which has left the country with the highest jobless rate in European Union.

More than 10,000 people gathered in the centre of Madrid in a demonstration organised by the country's two largest trade union confederations, the UGT and CCOO. Speakers said the crisis was Spain's worst in 15 years.

Many participants waved red union flags or held up signs calling for jobs, public investment and social protection.

CCOO leader Ignacio Fernandez Toxo did not rule out a general strike if the unions were not involved in a dialogue over how to revive the economy.

Unions in Spain are calling for a national pact between political parties, the government and public administrations to fight the recession and replace some of the thousands of jobs being lost each week in the country.

Protests were held in other key cities including Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.

The Archbishop of Seville, Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, said "job flexibility and precarity" were causing "justified unease".

"The repercussions of all this causes individuals and families to feel not a little amount of fear over the future," he said in a May Day message.

Formerly one of the eurozone's chief engines of economic growth and job creation, Spain suffered an abrupt change of fortunes last year with the outbreak of the global financial crisis.

It hastened a correction that was already under way in its key real estate sector.

Europe's fifth largest economy, which expanded at an impressive 3.7 percent in 2007, entered its first recession in 15 years at the end of 2008.

The unemployment rate rose to 17.36 percent in the first quarter of 2009 from 13.91 percent in the previous quarter, its highest level since 1998 and double the average in the 27-nation European Union.

Last week the International Monetary Fund said Spain would see two full years of recession, with the economy contracting 3.0 percent this year and 0.6 percent in 2010 and unemployment hitting 19.3 percent next year.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government, whose popularity has taken a hit due to the rise in unemployment, has repeatedly rejected taking any steps to make it easier for companies to fire workers.

"The government is very open to dialogue to see how we can find formulas to encourage hiring, not to facilitate firing workers," Labour Minister Celestino Corbacho told reporters at a May Day event.