The accessibility to employment offices in the Spanish labour market**Part of this work was done while Patricia Suárez and Matías Mayor were visiting research fellows at the Institute for Economic Research (University of Lugano), whose support is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are due to three anonymous referees as well as Roberto Patuelli, Enrique López†Bazo, Andrew Clark, Uwe Blien and Ron McQuaid for helpful observations and comments. Patricia Suárez would also like to thank the financial support by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain (FPU Grant) and Fundación Banco Herrero. A previous version of this paper was published as working paper no 610/2011 of the Fundación de las Cajas de Ahorros (FUNCAS). The usual disclaimer applies

This paper focuses on the differences in the levels of accessibility to public employment offices in the Spanish municipalities. Hence the main purpose is to evaluate the role of the public employment services in local labour markets by considering the physical distance to employment offices and the spatial structure of their catchment areas. First, we propose an accessibility measure and, second, we estimate a spatial model and test whether a higher accessibility to employment offices could contribute to reduce local unemployment rates. The results suggest that policy†makers should strive to improve the accessibility to employment offices so that adequate assistance to find suitable employment may be ensured to every jobseeker.