In Spain 42 of 1830 years are unemployed

Drafts of bills for gas and electricity, loads of the building housing... Fernando, unemployed after having long worked as a server in a bar for 877 per month, and his wife, Maria Pilar, who was arrested to households to give birth to her second child, overwhelming the unpaid. The family lived on Fernando allocations, which does not exceed EUR 466. He has to be resolved to ask for food, but also financial support, to Caritas in order to survive. "The pressure of the banks is very strong." "We discover a new poverty profile with people who, because of unemployment and the end of their social benefits, come see us for the first time," says Juan José Lopez, responsible for studies of the Catholic charity organization. "These are couples with small children, young people seeking first employment, single women, many small artisans, not to mention those that have helped us in the past and who have relapsed with the crisis.In Caritas, requests for assistance have increased from 400,000 to 600,000 in 2007 last year. This year, the bar of the 800,000 should be reached. Half of them from immigrant non EU citizens.

Assistance for immigrants return plan

Among them is Magali, a Bolivian of forty years. Arrival in Spain five years ago, seeks work after Lady of company of a person. It continues by households. War weary, she plans to return to her husband and daughters remained in the country. But of his own accord. Without resorting to the plan for voluntary return by the Government, there is one year, and who offers, as a rule with the administration and does not belonging to the European Union, to finance their ticket and pay them much (60) of their unemployment benefits in their country of origin, against the commitment not to return in Spain three years before. The device is indeed little success. If there were 290.000 departures of foreigners since the beginning of the year, only 8.700 applications for return were recorded, when the objective of starting, reduced later to 100,000, was 1.2 million over three years. Attracted by Spanish El Dorado, in the early 2000s, at the time of the economic miracle, more than 4.7 million foreigners live currently in the Iberian Peninsula, with nearly 2 million only officially affiliated to social security. With an unemployment rate of 28, this population is one of the most affected by the crisis. Behind the young...

42 of youth are unemployed

At twenty-eight years, Carlos finds himself at the wrong time on the job market - beginning of 2008, when really broke the crisis - after five years of professional experience in an advertising agency. "I thought quickly find a job, but after six months I was always there," he says. "With 1,100 euros a month of allocations, difficult to keep an apartment in Madrid." I am back with my parents in Teruel, where I followed courses in online marketing. "Today, Carlos shares his time between classes he gives at a Madrid University and a position in the business of marketing online. "I have the chance, he said." Half of my friends are not working. "This is the case more young 880.000. In Spain, 42 of 18-30 years are unemployed.

"Work of any kind." Painting, masonry and plumbing. Fast and economical. Call the... "Stuck on the lampposts, on walls or in the mailbox this type flyers abound in the streets of Madrid. The phone, Mario is not talkative on his professional curriculum. It provides in order to provide an invoice for the work done. "But it will be more expensive," he warned in the wake. As many hit by the crisis of the construction crafts and flock with their professional pickups to the output from the Madrid suburbs Ikea stores to offer their services to clients looking for cheap and fast deliveries, Mario has converted to the underground economy. According to the Association for the self-employed (ATA), which condemns this unfair competition, 1 million people work today in the black. Often for the account of their former employers. According some experts, almost EUR 240 billion, or 23 of GDP, thus escape the accounts of the State.

A real "war economy".

Fernando, Maria Pilar, Magali, Carlos and Mario situations demonstrate the shock by the Spain for over a year with, today, 4 to 4.4 million applicants employment or between 18 and 20 of the active population. Yet, except for queues that elongate to agencies for employment, social drama is difficult to collect behind all real estate projects left fallow, closed factories and small businesses definitely drop their curtains. The recent establishment of a minimum insertion of 420 euros monthly income available for a period of six months to end-of-rights employment seekers, Sarcelle number 600,000, has received, to date, that 140.500 requests. "The situation of the unemployed is not so dramatic that suggest the figures", dare to move Carlos Solchaga, former Socialist Minister of the Finances of Felipe Gonzalez.

No events, nor national strikes. The social calm can surprise. "We have already seen similar situations in the past and have probably developed a certain fatalism in the matter," explains Juan José Lopez, at Caritas. After largely prosperous years to the point of sometimes adopt a mentality of "new rich" and incurring heavily, the Spaniards have changed at all their habits. Fallen to 10 at the time of the "fat cows", their savings rate rose to 17.5 in late September, level never seen in forty years. A real "war economy". They have also reconnected with the values of the past as family solidarity and neighbourliness, a time forgotten. Donations to charitable organizations remain important, and volunteers poured in assistance networks.

"The spirit of mutual assistance, periods of unemployment benefits, which are long (two years), and the black market, which absorbs many people, especially immigrants, help to partly cushion the blow", enumerates Gaël Allard, Professor of Economics at the IE Business School. Any job seeker can include three years of contributions affects 70 of his salary for six months and then between 466 euros and 1.310 euros, depending on the level of remuneration, the eighteen months. The devolved budget to unemployment has exploded this year to exceed 30 billion euros. Nearly forty years of Franco can also explain the passivity of the Spaniards. In any case is the analysis of Vicenç Navarro, Associate Professor of public and social policies at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and at the John Hopkins University, in the United States. "Because of the dictatorship, they have adopted habits and culture inimical to the confrontation with the power", one who also runs the social Observatory of Spain develops.

Covenant implied labour-power

Some, finally, point the finger at the passivity of the unions, accused of "better defend those who have work than those who did not." "If a general strike was enough to put an end to unemployment, we would have triggered a long, but this is not the solution", had recently justified Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, Secretary General of workers Commissions (CCOO). Too happy this unique social peace in the light of the situation in the country, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Socialist President, does not fail to acknowledge the spirit of responsibility of trade unions. Tacitus, the non-aggression agreement is that the Government agreed resolutely alongside the latter for refusing to respond to requests from employers to reform the labour market. The alignment is Candido Mendez, leader of the General Union of workers (UGT), champion of the status quo, is sometimes presented as the true Minister of labour. In the meantime, nothing seems to contain the "sangria" (bleeding in Spanish). During the month of October alone, the country has yet saved 99.000 unemployed more...

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Economist at the OECD,

on lesechos.fr