An employment office in Barcelona’s L'Eixample neighborhood. JOAN SÁNCHEZ

Spain’s job market showed yet more signs of improvement on Tuesday. New figures released by the Labor Ministry reveal that in May, 213,015 workers signed up to the Social Security system, a 1.25% increase on the previous month.

The monthly figure is the strongest since 2005, with the total number of workers signed up to the system now totaling 17,221,310.

What’s really important here is that every day there are more people working and contributing to the system” Secretary of state for Social Security Tomás Burgos

Compared to the same month last year, May saw an increase of 592,937 people, a 3.57% rise.

Registered unemployment also saw positive figures in the fifth month of the year, falling to 4,215,031 people. Excluding seasonal factors, the figure remains positive, with a drop of 34,160 people, according to the ministry’s advance figures.

“What’s really important here is that every day there are more people working and contributing to the system,” said secretary of state for Social Security Tomás Burgos in a statement released on Tuesday by the ministry. “We have seen 16 months of positive growth.

In terms of areas of the economy, the hostelry sector saw the highest growth (65,563 new contributors), followed by administrative activities (23,096), commerce (19,726) and construction (14,172).

Public administration, meanwhile, saw a fall of 11,226 social security affiliates.

The Spanish economy has been plagued by high unemployment since the crisis took hold in 2008, when the global financial crisis kicked in, and the country’s booming real estate market went into meltdown.