According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 released today by the World Economic Forum, Spain falls to the same level as Puerto Rico (read article in Castilian here, El Pais). The report reveals that the Greek and the Spanish economy, which falls nine places to 42, have suffered the biggest cuts. Spain's classification now sits at 42 out of 139 economies in the world, and has fallen to the level of Puerto Rico and Barbados. The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) measures on a scale of between 0 and 7, a total of twelve factors, which include among others, infrastructure, environment business, labour and product markets, financial market, health and primary education, I+D and absolute size of the market. The document stated: "The decline is attributable largely to a growing negative management of labour and financial markets, besides the level of business sophistication of the country." Jennifer Blanke, one of the authors of the report, stressed that Spain is suffering from a "serious" fiscal imbalance, especially as regards public expenditure, in addition to problems of unemployment, one of the worst policies for hiring and firing (137th place out of a possible 139 worldwide).Spain is again situated at one of the worst positions in the European Union with only Portugal and Italy behind it. Germany, Finland, Holland, UK and France are all situated in the top 20 positions.