Madrid - The Spanish government Friday approved a package of urgent measures to maintain employment and to protect the jobless after unemployment reached the record level of nearly 3.5 million people.

The measures included financial benefits for companies employing jobless people, and allowing those entitled to unemployment benefits to touch them faster.

Trade unions and employers' organizations criticized the measures as insufficient.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero's socialist government has approved several stimulus packages to shore up the economy, which went into a recession this year.

The latest Spanish official statistics put the unemployment percentage at 13.9 per cent in December, the highest in the European Union. (dpa)