The number of job seekers rose 0.82 percent from the previous month to 4.75 million people, its eighth monthly increase, according to a labour ministry report which is based on the official unemployment register.
The Spanish economy, the eurozone's fourth largest, is still reeling from the collapse of a labour-intensive property bubble in 2008 which destroyed millions of jobs.
Figures released in January by the National Statistics Institute, which uses a different calculation method, showed a jobless queue of 5.27 million and an unemployment rate of 22.85 percent at the end of 2011.
The government expects the unemployment rate -- already the highest in the industrialised world -- to surge to 24.3 percent this year.
Spain is expected to contract 1.7 percent this year, after posting a modest expansion of 0.7 percent in 2011, according to the government's estimates.