By Wendy Andersen

AS the billions of bailout money are directed at recapitalising Spanish banks, little will trickle down to Spanish youth. 

Unemployment among 15 to 24 year olds in Spain has already reached 51 per cent, or 1.5 million youths.

And Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy recently said he expects the country’s economy to get worse before it gets better, specifically pointing out that unemployment increases are expected.

The lack of work has resulted in 37 per cent of 25 to 34 year-olds having to remain at home living off the goodwill of their parents.

Indeed the economic crisis has prevented a whole generation from starting careers and families, and is being dubbed the ‘Peter Pan generation’ because they cannot grow up, leave home or get on with their lives.

As the time between graduation and finding a job increases, the skills graduates have learned become outdated and stagnant.

Unable to practice their professions, young Spaniards risk falling further and further behind.

“For the rest of their lives, they’re damaged,” says Katherine Newman, a sociologist and dean at Johns Hopkins University.

“They don’t recover occupationally, their earnings are depressed for 20 years, and they don’t marry at the same rate.”

So with little hope of finding employment in their homeland, many Spaniards are looking for jobs in other countries, Germany in particular.

The number of Spaniards moving to Germany increased by 49 per cent in 2011 compared to the previous year.

All over Spain classes in German are oversubscribed as the unemployed try to boost their job prospects.

With low unemployment, Germany has launched a campaign to attract skilled workers, through its website, www.make-it-in-germany.com aimed specifically at helping foreigners who want to move to Germany. It’s certainly paying off.

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17 COMMENTS

  1. Good heavens Mr Rose, you sound like a true modern open minded European ………..

    and don’t worry when quoting Goethe and Schiller with a lisp it sounds really quite romantic ………..

    even more so when earning a decent living and having a good shot at actually having a future, while at it.

  2. I am actually very open minded, oh anonymous bull board.

    There is no such thing as a lisp in Spanish pronunciation, that is a common myth amongst the less informed.

    As to having a future, it is pretty obvious to those paying attention that it is German economic policy that is contributing to the problems in Spain and other countries, which is why it is selfishly obstructing attempts to correct the situation…

  3. “it is German economic policy that is contributing to the problems in Spain”

    Constantly bailing out countries like Spain will not solve their problems in the long term. Is it really the fault of Germany that Spain has a massive black economy, no work, and no proper training? Blame it all on Germany! Incredulous in the extreme to say that Germany is somehow stopping Spain having a fiscally sound future when they allowed themselves to create a property boom that then collapsed and placed the country in total economic limbo.

    Btw, Bully is as anonymous as you are. Prove you really are Christopher Smith. Good luck with that lol.

  4. of course you are open minded Christopher, you just need to explain where ignorant statements like yours truly above come from ?

    Your dark side ?

    and please don’t get into the Germans are at fault BS, unless your dark side is a left over from the yellow press ……

    giving Spain more money is like giving chocolate to infantile diabetics

  5. Christopher Rose,
    wrong on both counts, it is you who is uninformed – Philip 11 was born with a lisp and as he was an absolute monarch, all his courtiers had to speak castillano with a lisp, so he would’nt feel inferior. This stupidity continued even after he died,the Spanish find it very hard to move forward in anything. You don’t believe me – listen to state radio or TV news – they all speak castillano with a lisp.

    If you listen to Spanish speakers from Central/South America they never got caught up in this nonsense because their ancestors had decamped to the New World before Philip 11 was born, that’s why I never had any problem understanding TV programmes from Venezuala or Mexico.

    Secondly, you know zero about European economics and the introduction of the Euro – the Euro was introduced without any controls on ramping up prices at currency changeover. The ECB interest rate was also set way too low but no one forced the southern Europeans including the Spanish and Greeks to buy German products on credit.

    Like most northern Europeans and Scandinavians I was brought up to live within my means – the Germans,Dutch and French don’t live on credit – they save their money. As soon as these people saw the economic crunch coming they stopped spending, that’s why so many restaurants,bars and clubs went out of business from 2008 onwards. When I warned the Spanish what was coming they just laughed – they are not laughing now – sensible Germans/stupid Spanish.

    The Spanish have wasted so much of the money transferred from the north, it did’nt go into well thought out projects but on ego trips and now they will squander the €100 billion when or if they get it, which is not certain, since Germans, Dutch, Finns etc have yet to ratify this incredibly stupid waste of northern taxpayers money.

  6. Fred, saying that German economic policies are contributing to the problems in Spain is NOT to “blame it all on Germany”. Please don’t indulge in such hysterical over-reaction as it makes the task of taking you seriously, already a difficult one, practically impossible.

    By the way, my surname is Rose, not Smith, as you can see on each of my comments, and I am readily findable on the internet, so perhaps you could take a little time to educate yourself before sounding off so loudly but inaccurately?

    Bull Board, I don’t feel inclined towards taking advice from or explaining economic or political principles to someone who appears to delight in argument for argument’s sake. If you actually want to have a decent chat rather than lock horns, you’re more than welcome though.

    Stuart, actually, it is a myth, widely believed but a myth, that the Spanish pronunciation has anything to do with any Spanish king.

    As you don’t appear to have done any research, here is an article from Wikipedia, a site that is proven to be just as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica, on the Spanish ceceo and seseo, that addresses the subject “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceceo”

    On the subject of knowing zero, as you don’t know me, you don’t actually have any way of knowing what I know about anything, so please try to avoid making stuff up as it undermines your credibility.

    Having just done the research, it isn’t actually the case that the “Germans, Dutch and French don’t live on credit”, although it does appear to be the case that personal debt levels in those countries are lower.

    I’m not arguing that the Spanish haven’t made mistakes, but that is true of all European countries as the fundamental economic and political systems are in need of drastic modernisation at a national and supra-national level.

    The real question is whether such reform will be undertaken or not, and I tend to think not, which will probably come back to bite us all again in the future…

  7. Christopher Rose,

    I chose to reply to your comment about “a place like Germany” with such an “ugly language” because I found it profoundly ignorant and racist …….

    No more – No less

    and fyi there is a reason why using Wikipedia, is not allowed in any educational system, as a reliable source.

  8. Bull board, apparently the list of things you don’t understand include ignorance and racism.

    I actually studied German for two years so am reasonably familiar with the language and I am at least semi-fluent in Spanish and can get by in French and Flemish Dutch as well. I would hope that would exclude the charge of ignorance.

    I didn’t say anything about German people amongst whom I have lived, loved and worked, so my comment about the language being ugly is clearly an aesthetic opinion rather than racism, which I believe I am entitled to. I personally prefer the poetic beauty and nuanced expression of Spanish and the creativity and hybrid flexibility of English.

    As to the reliability of Wikipedia, here are two different pieces on the subject, from Wikipedia itself – “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia”, and from Dummies.com (a site you ought to be familiar with!) “http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/is-wikipedia-reliable.html”

    There are perfectly valid reasons for it not being used as an educational resource but that does not mean that the site is of no value.

    I take it that as you appear to have no response on the actual content of the ceceo article you concede the point is in fact valid and are, once again, simply indulging in your penchant for pointless argument?

  9. Bull Board, as I didn’t use the word duty I fail to understand the relevance of this seemingly random quotation. Do you?

    In my experience, when someone is doing something on the internet they are ashamed of, they do it anonymously…

  10. If your comments are what passes for wit or intelligence in your part of the world, please let me know where it is so I can make sure I don’t interrupt your anonymous abuse of others.

    et maledictus nubilus mentis …

  11. Christopher, when are you going to prove to us that you are the real Christopher Rose? Readily ‘findable’ on the Internet is meaningless. You may be a different Christopher Rose entirely. Thus, you remain as anonymous as any other poster on here, but are alas too thick to realise it. Am I ashamed to say that. lol no.

  12. Fred, you may just possibly be the king, or maybe even queen, of your own head, but I don’t have to prove anything to you.

    Findable is not meaningless if you know what you’re doing but apparently you can’t even find your own surname, so I’m not inclined to worry much about your perception of “thick”. I’m certainly a real Christopher Rose but I’ll leave it up to your vast intellect to work out which one.

    You’re probably not ashamed to say anything on the net but then you do have your heroic shield of anonymity to hide behind, you heroic little keyboard warrior you!

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