Madrid, May 6 (EFE).- Spain's economy has reached a "turning point" and the April employment figures show a "positive" trend, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said Monday. The Employment and Social Security Ministry reported that the number of unemployed people in Spain fell for a second consecutive month in April, with 46,050 fewer jobless people. The total number of unemployed dropped 0.91 percent to 4.98 million, the ministry said.

Madrid, Apr 30 (EFE).- Spain's economy contracted 0.50 percent in the first quarter of this year, or three-tenths of a percent less than in the final quarter of 2012, the National Statistics Institute, or INE, said Tuesday. The gross domestic product contracted 2 percent in year-on-year terms in the January-March period, or one-tenth of a percent more than in the prior quarter. Spain's economy has now contracted for seven consecutive quarters, the INE said. GDP began falling in the third quarter of 2011 after staging a recovery that quickly stalled.

Spain forecast Friday it would climb out of its bitter recession in 2014 but needed two extra years to meet the European Union's target for reining in its public deficit. It announced its latest gloomy growth forecast for the current year along with a "stability plan" that aims to spur economic growth after more than a year of harsh cutbacks. The government said Spain's economy, the eurozone's fourth-biggest, would shrink by 1.3 percent in 2013 and timidly return to growth of 0.5 percent in 2014.

Spain forecast Friday it would climb out of its bitter recession in 2014 but needed two extra years to meet the European Union's target for reining in its public deficit. The government said Spain's economy, the eurozone's fourth-biggest, would shrink by 1.3 percent in 2013 and timidly return to growth of 0.5 percent in 2014. But it admitted it would likely take until 2016 to bring the country's public deficit -- a crucial measure of financial stability -- under the European Union's three-percent limit.