For nearly two decades, the number 100,000 has hung over Malaga like an unbreakable curse. Ever since the 2008 financial crash, this psychological barrier has defined the province's labour market. No matter how many trendy tech hubs opened or how many millions of tourists flooded the Costa del Sol, the jobless queue refused to shrink below six figures.

Now, according to projections from the state employment service (Sepe), the curse is finally set to break. Forecasters predict unemployment will plummet to 90,000 this July, eventually bottoming out at a historic 74,000 by the summer of 2028. On paper, it looks like an economic miracle, with job creation outpacing the rest of Spain four times over.

But before we pop the champagne, we need a healthy dose of algorithmic scepticism. The Sepe relies on an AI model called NeuralProphet - and if recent history has taught us anything, it is that computers are terribly confident about being wrong.

AI models look backward to predict forward; they crunch historical data and assume the future will neatly follow the same pattern. What they cannot account for are unpredictable "Black Swan" events - the pandemics, geopolitical shocks or sudden tourism crises that actually dictate human history. Treating an AI graph as an infallible crystal ball is a dangerous gamble.

Even if the algorithms get it right, look past the celebratory charts and a more sobering reality emerges. Malaga's problem is a structural demographic trap.

While the province has successfully generated 50 per cent more jobs since 2008, it is wrestling with an entrenched, forgotten workforce. More than 60 per cent of Malaga's remaining unemployed - roughly 62,000 people - are over the age of 45. A significant portion are over 52; these are individuals surviving on state subsidies who have been left behind by the modern economy and are simply running out the clock until retirement.

The bittersweet truth is that Malaga will not achieve true full employment through economic growth alone. The data suggests this pool of unemployment will eventually dissolve not because of a sudden hiring boom, but because an ageing generation will simply age out of the statistics.

The authorities must not assume AI is infallible. Instead of relying on passive demographic shifts, they need to invest in aggressive retraining for older workers to make these positive predictions a reality.