http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9044897/Spains-lost-generation-youth-unemployment-surges-above-50-per-cent.html
They are calling themselves generation zero. The Spanish young persons (16-24) unemployment rate is 51.4 percent about double the European Union average. Young Spaniards are now living at home longer, drug use is increasing and depression rates are up. The average age of independence is well into its thirties now.
Many students are not satisfied with how little a university education guarantees. The problem does not just stay with the youth. With longer periods of dependency average savings with diminish and the Spanish government will be in an even deeper hole with their liabilities and promises.
To digress, this is a fundamental cultural and institution problem. When I was living in Spain I was astounded with how much time out of the day was spent either preparing for or opening up after siesta. I don't know what the average work day is, but whatever it is the data is low. It is inconceivable to think that a country will have healthy rates of unemployment when the hours that can be worked is a 1/4 of where it should be elsewhere because of Siesta. This is more of a personal rant because it was so frustrating to go shopping when I had free time to only have half the stores in town be closed.
I don't have sympathy.
7 comments:
I wonder if the institutions in Europe really aren't doing a good job preparing them, or if it is simply the fault of the economy.
I wonder if the institutions in Europe really aren't doing a good job preparing them, or if it is simply the fault of the economy.
This is not surprising. The issue in Greece is not exclusive, some other countries in European such as Spain are enduring high employment and even worse condition in the future. In addition, due to the aging population. Who in the future can support the society? People need to think about it.
This article reflects the viability and stability criteria of economic system outcome evaluation. A strong economic system should be able to face the valuations and crisis in economic downturn. In Europe, Germany is doing a great job in keeping its general economic phase relatively more stable than other countries. Here Spain is a good example of how the system is not stable. Unemployment and lack of confidence and hope are worse than anything, especially the major impact is on youth. If the situation lasts long, more serious result might happen. And that will be a test for its viability.
I think it is important to go into college with the sense that nothing is guaranteed. It has everything to do with yourself and how you prepare yourself for the real world. Nothing will be given to you. If you want to be successful, you need to go out and get it yourself.
The problem is, as the economy slumps, there are less and less jobs available, let alone to new graduates.
I'm not familiar with the situation in Spain, yet in Italy, there are many and many college graduates (and even Master holders) who cannot find a job and usually have to settle for temporary works such as taking internship.
In Europe, there is quite a big difference in economic structure between Northern European countries (Germany, Sweden, Finland...) and Southern (Greece, Italy, Spain). In these Southern countries, the economy is hit particularly hard since a larger portion of population works in agriculture and other low-level industries that are punished by cheap imports. In the Northern countries, a big part of the economy is manufacturing with technologies that are not so easy to replicate by third world countries. That's why countries like Germany is still much more stable than Spain, Greece and Italy.
For the phenomena of lost generation in Span, I think the major cause of this problem is its system/mechanism, and the (global) economic crisis triggered the problem that was latent in the“siesta” working system. In terms of my view, the government of Spain should make more efforts on helping/connecting the young workforces to the workplaces. That is, reeducating the frictional unemployment. As it says in the article, "This is the least hopeful and best educated generation in Spain", that is the young workforces are well trained (in school) already. Therefore, based on this condition, the government should create not only more job opportunities but also organize the young workforces in a more efficient way.
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