Employment in Spain - Past & Future

Past & Future

When you think of Spain, you probably think of sun, sea, and food, but like all countries in the world, it isn't without its problems. Still recovering from turbulent social and political situations of the past, Spain’s unemployment rate is one of the highest in Europe. As a result, young people are looking outwards, towards the rest of Europe for jobs and opportunities. Let’s take a look at the situation in depth.

According to the Institute of National Statistics (INE), Spain has an unemployment rate between 9.6% and 23.1%, with the highest rates being in the regions of Extremadura and Andalucia. The national average of 14.5% is significantly higher than that of, say, Germany or the UK (between 3.5% - 5%).

Unemployment in Spain is a problem that the country has faced since the 1970s during the rule of Fransico Franco. After the financial crash of the 1980s, certain reforms affected the unemployment rate drastically. For example, trade union activism was banned, and social welfare was severely lacking. During this time nearly 2.7 million jobs in agriculture were replaced by 1.1 million jobs in the public sector. Spain did try to recover during the 1990s, but progress stalled and started to regress after the financial crash of 2008.

Spanish Youth

Perhaps the hardest-hit group of people by unemployment in Spain is the youth. Roughly 57% of people aged between 15 and 24 are currently unemployed, and with a hard-hit economy due to the Covid-19 pandemic, that number is set to grow. Young people in Spain tend to have less work experience, which in turn leads to higher unemployment. Factor in a high rate of student dropouts and fewer work contracts available, Spain’s youth are looking for new options.

With a change to German immigration laws, Germany is becoming an easier destination for EU citizens to migrate to, and many young people in Spain are taking advantage of this. Young people across the EU are rapidly moving to Europe’s most prosperous cities, drawn away from regional and local life to jobs in the bigger, urban centers. It was reported that over 2 million young people moved abroad in 2013, away from Spain, and that number has only been going up; this presents Spain with the new problem of depopulation.

With the restrictions and economic problems arising from the Coronavirus pandemic, the future of Spain, like many countries, is unclear. Moving forward, the government will need to address some of these issues before they get out of hand.