Spain´s jobless rate hits 17%.

From CNN:

Spain's jobless rate rose sharply, to 17.36 percent in the first quarter, with more than 4 million people out of work, the government said Friday.

Nearly half of the 4 million lost their jobs in the past year, the National Statistics Institute said.

It's the first time that Spain's jobless total has exceeded 4 million, economist Carlos Maravall told CNN.

The numbers did not surprise economists, who have been tracking steady increases of monthly jobless raw numbers from the government. But Spain's official jobless rate is revised only every quarter.

Spain's previous rate of 13.9 percent, issued early this year for the fourth quarter of 2008, was already the highest in the European Union.