Spanish Unemployment Rate

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    • #57090
      angie
      Blocked

      I read yesterday that Spain’s unemployment rate rose by 1.7% during September to an overall new high of 25.1% 😯

      How much unemployment benefit do individuals receive in Spain and how long is it paid for?

      Do claimants also get help with Council Taxes, Utilities, Food coupons (milk) etc as I think happens in the UK with some or all of these?

      Do they get help with their mortgages and rent as in the UK?

      How sustainable is Spain’s benefits bill and that of the high Eurozone figures too? 🙄

    • #112528
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      They don’t get housing benefit. that’s for sure – costing the UK £20 billion a year and rising.
      There is a lot of speculation that the 400Euro a month will be stopped in Spain in the new year – I understand it stops after a year anyway?

    • #112533
      Anonymous
      Participant

      I thought it was 2 years, do those figures include the people who have been out of work for longer than the period they get benifits for or are they just the ones recieving benifits

    • #112537
      Chopera
      Participant

      I think the Spanish government extended the €400/month payment a few months ago (with back payments) so it must be for more than 2 years now.

    • #112538
      Chopera
      Participant
    • #112540
      Anonymous
      Participant

      They don’t pay housing benefit, tax credits or other such benefits as per other countries. The dole runs out and the 400 euros does as well. Then what? There is no ‘job seekers’ to rely on. There is I believe a set amount of help for single mothers, of about 500 euros per month for six months?

      Also, 400 euros…. try living on that as a family when your mortgage is 550 euros. It doesn’t add up. Too many are having to make the decision to either pay the bank or feed their families.

      I wonder how many are also not paying their IBI or rubbish collection? Small as these charges are (IBI is council tax and is about 150 euros for a flat per year, and rubbish collection is around 38 euros for three months). It means then that the town halls are going to be getting even more in debt each day.

      Sadly friends who are helping those affected by the floods say that the usual group are stealing from places which are not as secure as they were previously. They are saying that the local authorities were very quick to show that they were there to help but it’s because they need funding for the clear up.

      So, EU money was spent by Spain on roads, which they sub, sub, sub contracted out so it was badly done. These shoddy bridges/urbanisations etc. have now been washed away so Spain again will ask the EU to fund the rebuild…. and round we go again……..?

      Here in Ireland my husband is lucky enough to be doing manual work. There are four youngsters from Barcelona who are here working on a farm for their board and lodgings. There is nothing for them back in Spain they say so they’d rather be here working for a roof over their heads and learning english.

    • #112573
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      Chinese who have made their millions through hard work (and living several to a room) and investing in property around Madrid…although you wonder if they are feeling the pinch now?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp3IEf-MKuo

    • #112574
      Anonymous
      Participant

      The Spanish do not live many in one room at least not to my knowledge. The Chinese work ethics is missing with the Spanish . The Chinese do not have a siesta & fiesta mentality

      The Spanish prefer to cheat, not put in no of hours, lie and apply all devious means to not work & evade doing a honest days work.

    • #112577
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Not all though…..

      Many in the 1970’s had to share rooms when they went to Switzerland and they earnt enough to have a good start back home again in Spain.

      Maybe the youngsters just were given too much on a plate which has now been pulled away from them?

    • #112578
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      and apply all devious means to not work & evade doing a honest days work.

      I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Spanish people both in the UK and in Spain, and this statement is totally untrue. In fact in all my own experiences the Spanish concerned were generally more efficient and hard-working than their Brit co-workers. (This does not mean it’s always the case, as I’ve seen some inefficient working in Spain.)
      Just a couple of examples – I can go into a Spanish cafe bar and within 50-60 seconds of shouting out “un con leche, cuando puedas” I have a decent cup in front of me. Here in London, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Wetherspoons, a Costa or a “barista-special” it takes ages to get served. Of course not all the staff are Brits…
      At the other end of the scale, it seems Spain can build a high speed rail line, crossing difficult terrain including mountains and ravines for say 8 billion euros within 10 years. Let me know if HS2 will get built in under 15 years and for less than 30 billion?
      Do people really think that successful people like the Spanish footballers, the Michelin chefs, Rafa Nadal, and those fashion store moguls got to where they are by being lazy?? No, the Spanish know how to work hard and efficiently.
      Where I think (and it’s just my opinion) Spanish families have erred, is in encouraging their offspring to study for oposiciones and a govt posting. This mind-set is changing – it has to as the jobs are no longer there – but it perhaps stopped the clever kids from branching out on their own path.

    • #112580
      katy
      Blocked

      Thought your experience was confined to a bit of TEFL teaching…dream on 😆 😆 😆

    • #112581
      Chopera
      Participant

      My experience of working with Spanish is that they are very similar to people in the UK. Many are prepared to put the hours in to get the job done, others put the hours in just to give the impression they are getting the job done, and others just don’t bother. The difference to the UK is that the rewards for getting the job done are less, so people aren’t motivated. Stupid labour laws prevent job mobility and reward people for staying in the same job all their working lives, rather than encouraging them to develop their careers.

    • #112582
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Chopera you meant spanish right? That’s my main concern with spanish labour laws because it’s so damn expensive to fire useless people.

    • #112583
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @katy wrote:

      Thought your experience was confined to a bit of TEFL teaching…dream on 😆 😆 😆

      You “thought” wrong – again! Enjoying the ways your opinions are always so wide of the mark!! 😆

    • #112584
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @Chopera wrote:

      My experience of working with Spanish is that they are very similar to people in the UK. Many are prepared to put the hours in to get the job done, others put the hours in just to give the impression they are getting the job done, and others just don’t bother. The difference to the UK is that the rewards for getting the job done are less, so people aren’t motivated. Stupid labour laws prevent job mobility and reward people for staying in the same job all their working lives, rather than encouraging them to develop their careers.

      We’ve seen the Spanish apply themselves and become world leaders in different fields – whether in retail (Zara or Camper), banking (yes, Santander, despite all the Brit sneerers), sport (think of Nadal, certain golfers or the football teams – Real Madrid is the world’s biggest earning team) or even cuisine. Of course there are plenty, same as in other countries who do just enough to get by. So the talent and ability to work hard in their field is definitely there. I think it borders on a rascist mentality (and indeed shows a certain laziness in their own mental processes) to describe a nation as “lazy”. I remember working in a food preparation factory in the UK many years ago in the 90s, and alongside the locals were students and migrant workers from several countries. I don’t need to tell anyone here, from which country the most effective workers came? Well it was Spain then, but perhaps now it would be Poland. It would be the easy option to state that the local workers were the shirkers, but the truth is they were the ones who’d worked longest and had no other option to look forward to in life. You get motivated and unmotivated people everywhere, I don’t think a nationality changes that. But opportunity does differ in different countries, and that can obviously affect people’s attitudes generally,

    • #112585
      logan
      Participant

      Civil servants the world over are lazy, useless surly workers who could not hack it elsewhere in the private sector. Spanish civil servants are without doubt one of the worst examples of that.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQQYXZK7baA

      I have employed Spanish workers in my past and found them very hard working. However ask them to use their initiative or make a decision and they collapse. So as long as you supervise them closely they are fine. However I would if I were in business again hire workers from Poland. They are amazing.

    • #112586
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      I’d agree that Polish workers are generally very hard-working and knowledgeable. But that’s an impression I’ve got from those who’ve left their country to find work elsewhere. Are they all the same back in Poland?

    • #112587
      katy
      Blocked

      Yes good posts DBM, for once we agree. There was a discussion on one of the Spanish forums last year about working unpaid hours in Spain, particularly in the service sector. Many were averaging 2 hours per day as the restaurants contracted them for eg. 8 hours but remained open if there were customers.

      We had a Romanian gardener in Spain and he was excellent too. As in any country there are workers and shirkers.

    • #112588
      Chopera
      Participant

      I worked for a Spanish start-up 5 years ago and we regularly worked through the night to meet deadlines. The problem was that working through the night is not very efficient when the job requires concentration, so the difficulties in getting the product out of the door compounded, they didn’t pay for the extra hours (they made a few promises) and they were very presumptious about expecting people to do the hours, with no apparent acknowledgement that people were going beyond what was expected of them.

      I remember a discussion with my boss where she said that if you work for this company you have to work hard. I told her that I don’t work for her company, I work for myself and always have done. I told her that we had a contract, nothing more, and that she had broken it. I don’t think she could understand my view point on emplyer-employee relationships, but anyway I left as soon as I found a better job (which wasn’t difficult in those days).

      The thing is now I am reluctant to change employer, not only because I have built up a nice redundancy pay off, but also I realise that there’s a risk of ending up back working for an exploitative company again. In the UK I would be freelancing by now, but in Spain all the benefits lie with finding an ok job with an ok company, keeping your head down, and hoping to be made redundant after 20 years. It’s not the kind of attitude that tends to fire up the economy, but it is an attitude shared by virtually everyone I know in Spain

    • #112591
      peterhun
      Participant

      @DBMarcos99 wrote:

      I’d agree that Polish workers are generally very hard-working and knowledgeable. But that’s an impression I’ve got from those who’ve left their country to find work elsewhere. Are they all the same back in Poland?

      Varies. Dealing with Polish civil service is a nightmare, the film Brazil comes to mind.

      In Poland, Polish workers work hard because there isn’t an real unemployment benefit, its work or starve. When I had decorators in they lived in the rooms they were working on and worked 12hour days. Conversely I heard builders sometimes prefer vodka drinking and stealing your materials..

      If you get recommenced (via contacts) workers will do a good job out of pride, picking a company out of the phone book can be much more hit and miss.

      Poles who come to the UK have one target: earn as fast as possible and get back to the family, so they are focused.

    • #112596
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      An interesting article here on how the crisis is forcing people to branch out on their own, after an initial drop in entrepreneurial activity.

      http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/09/24/inenglish/1348489212_037109.html

      The first two years of the current crisis – between 2008 and 2010 – saw a decline in entrepreneurial activity in Spain, according to the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, produced in conjunction with IE Business School in 54 countries worldwide. But GEM also notes that last year saw a 35-percent increase in the number of people starting their own businesses in Spain, representing almost six percent of working-age Spaniards. This may sound like good news but GEM points out that this does not represent “economic recovery,” instead noting: “Entrepreneurial activity has increased because of need and unemployment.”

    • #112602
      Anonymous
      Participant

      The thing is now I am reluctant to change employer, not only because I have built up a nice redundancy pay off, but also I realise that there’s a risk of ending up back working for an exploitative company again. In the UK I would be freelancing by now, but in Spain all the benefits lie with finding an ok job with an ok company, keeping your head down, and hoping to be made redundant after 20 years. It’s not the kind of attitude that tends to fire up the economy, but it is an attitude shared by virtually everyone I know in Spain

      😡 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡

      Chopera, you are a great example why Spain is stuck in the doldrums; lazy, unambitious, work shy just waiting to get your mitts on the finiquito (termination pay off) … with all the austerity coming, screwing down by co’s, higher demands for productivity not to mention inflation you are all being catapulted back fifteen years and you dont even realise it 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

      the future is not going to be the same for workers, it’s time they all woke up and got off their butt!!!

    • #112603
      Anonymous
      Participant

      “Civil servants the world over are lazy, useless surly workers who could not hack it elsewhere in the private sector. Spanish civil servants are without doubt one of the worst examples of that.”

      Couldn’t agree more.

      “I’d agree that Polish workers are generally very hard-working and knowledgeable. But that’s an impression I’ve got from those who’ve left their country to find work elsewhere”

      Agree, they also have the right work ethics and do not take many Vodka breaks. Yes on Monday mornings some times they struggle. I can accept this as they have a sunday night parties and are worse for wear. They are away from homes/loved ones, work hard in some very undesirable professions/locations, face prejudism & abuse on a daily basis..

      The Polish Civil service is still not been modernised & I suppose it will take time until the natural wastage is accounted for. Speaking to many of them they are well aware of their history and feel that EU has given them a very good opportunity to progress & they are willing to grab it. Who can blame them and I for one would wish them luck.

      I compare the Poles to Germans in their work ethics and Romanians to Spanish. It must be the fault of the Latin language !!!.

      ” have employed Spanish workers in my past and found them very hard working. However ask them to use their initiative or make a decision and they collapse “

      Agree, this is the result of years of Dictatorship i.e. dont think just do, lack of training as untrained staff will lack the capacity to think of alternative ways of doing things. They are afraid to make mistakes in case they get sacked so they will not take initiative, besides their equally untrained senior is no leader or mentors. Besides no one in Spain makes a mistake they find acknowledgment of a mistake damages their ego and they would become a sitting duck for the sacking list. Some staff hold onto jobs by doing sexual & other favours.

      Hence the desire to be a civil servent. I have heard my Spanish friends telling me how hard they work and when I tell them they are stupid for working hard. They are astonished when I tell them to be working smart the majority draws a blank. As a result of my remarks they find me uncaring. When I tell them that I may be uncaring & so is the world outside.

      “So as long as you supervise them closely they are fine.”

      Yes. I recall in the 80/90, most of the CEO of a large organisations were non Spaniards. In the current times the Spanish companies that have/had Spaniards at the CEO are in a mess. This is the result of lack of training, learning from mistake & be a number 2 as appose to a no 1. WE all know the fieaso of BAA, Telefonica, Fadesa to name a few.

      “I remember a discussion with my boss where she said that if you work for this company you have to work hard “

      I guess she did feel that working smart was the way forward but work like a ” burro” !!!!

      “I work for myself and always have done. I told her that we had a contract, nothing more, and that she had broken it.”

      You challanged a woman and being a non Spaniard !!!. Did she not made you feel that you were being ungrateful that you were given a job !!!!!!!!

      “I don’t think she could understand my view point on emplyer-employee relationships”

      UBEDA is spot on. In Spain the Management do not consider their staff as their biggest Asset and as result the rift starts. Thestaff than thinks of clocking the years. These kind of employee’s are absent from work and when at work do not produce &, also demotivate other/younger staff and in behaving in this manner & spoils the next generations

      They are not there to be made to understood by an employer. What relationship ??? you are an emplyee & dont get too big for your boots.

      ” I have built up a nice redundancy pay off, but also I realise that there’s a risk of ending up back working for an exploitative company again”.

      “in Spain all the benefits lie with finding an ok job with an ok company, keeping your head down, and hoping to be made redundant after 20 years “

      Yep, pretty to have nothing to show for after twenty years but a sad & brutal ending instead leaving a legal & a contibution to look back to.

      ” It’s not the kind of attitude that tends to fire up the economy, but it is an attitude shared by virtually everyone I know in Spain”

      Yes.

    • #112604
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      It’s worth reminding ourselves that there are lots of Spanish entrepreneurs who build up businesses, and we’re not just talking about Perez and his ilk in the construction game, nor the Botin crowd in banking. Some examples include the boss at Inditex who’s now Europe’s richest man. The guy behind 100 montaditos (expanding into the US) and the new La sureña chain. And various serial tech entrepreneurs like Carlos Blanco (GrupoITnet, Akamon and OcioDigital), Marek Fodor (agroterra.com atrapalo.com and Kantox.com) and Enrique Dubois (Minics, Salud.es and various start-ups with Mola.com). Not forgetting Jesus Encinar of course, the guy behind Idealista and 11870.com (among other ventures). We can’t forget about the wine and food sector promoting their products abroad either – their cavas, Riojas, chorizos and jamones seem to be everywhere nowadays.

      Edit: A link to a Spanish article naming the most innovative/disruptive entrepreneurs in Spain. It includes our old friend at El Bulli – Ferrán Adrià, thanks to his work in molecular gastronomy!

      http://gananzia.com/los-15-espanoles-mas-disruptivos

    • #112606
      Anonymous
      Participant

      Mops and Chupa Chup lollies…..

    • #112607
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @itsme wrote:

      Mops and Chupa Chup lollies…..

      I prefer to remind posters from the UK that there’s a fair chance if they’re using O2 broadband to gain internet access, that it’s Spanish owned (Telefonica). Or, if they’re using BT there’s a good chance their wifi router uses Fon technology from Madrid. The rise of Chupa-chups is from a different era.
      If they’re younger they may well have Zara Mango or Camper stuff in their wardrobe – I have to admit I don’t quite know how Zara have managed to be so successful.

    • #112608
      Anonymous
      Participant

      @DBM: Ofcourse there are few in a population of nearly 66million. Would they be enough to support the remaining poulation

      I do not know the current stucture of the Botin family. I am sure that a very large percentage of their activities/growth are from outside Spain.

      Owning a bisiness if one thing developing it with synergy is a another. BAA CEO would not appear in press & other meetings etc. Its Financial & other Directors left within a week all well documented.

    • #112610
      peterhun
      Participant

      @DBMarcos99 wrote:

      I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Spanish people both in the UK and in Spain, and this statement is totally untrue. In fact in all my own experiences the Spanish concerned were generally more efficient and hard-working than their Brit co-workers. (This does not mean it’s always the case, as I’ve seen some inefficient working in Spain.)
      Just a couple of examples – I can go into a Spanish cafe bar and within 50-60 seconds of shouting out “un con leche, cuando puedas” I have a decent cup in front of me. Here in London, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Wetherspoons, a Costa or a “barista-special” it takes ages to get served. Of course not all the staff are Brits…
      At the other end of the scale, it seems Spain can build a high speed rail line, crossing difficult terrain including mountains and ravines for say 8 billion euros within 10 years. Let me know if HS2 will get built in under 15 years and for less than 30 billion?
      Do people really think that successful people like the Spanish footballers, the Michelin chefs, Rafa Nadal, and those fashion store moguls got to where they are by being lazy?? No, the Spanish know how to work hard and efficiently.

      None of that is relevant, except getting served quickly indicates inefficiency – employees who aren’t busy can respond quicker.

      Spain’s problem is not laziness, its that they are paid to much for what they do. The country needs an internal devaluation – its wages need to fall 25% and then stay there. Normally a currency devaluation would achieve this but Spain cannot do it. Germany is much more productive as they have forgone 10years of pay rises and they are economically merged with Spain.

      The UK had a 25% devaluation which is possibly the reason why unemployment has been falling in the UK and rising in Spain, Spains productivity is not good.

    • #112611
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @peterhun wrote:

      @DBMarcos99 wrote:

      I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Spanish people both in the UK and in Spain, and this statement is totally untrue. In fact in all my own experiences the Spanish concerned were generally more efficient and hard-working than their Brit co-workers. (This does not mean it’s always the case, as I’ve seen some inefficient working in Spain.)
      Just a couple of examples – I can go into a Spanish cafe bar and within 50-60 seconds of shouting out “un con leche, cuando puedas” I have a decent cup in front of me. Here in London, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Wetherspoons, a Costa or a “barista-special” it takes ages to get served. Of course not all the staff are Brits…
      At the other end of the scale, it seems Spain can build a high speed rail line, crossing difficult terrain including mountains and ravines for say 8 billion euros within 10 years. Let me know if HS2 will get built in under 15 years and for less than 30 billion?
      Do people really think that successful people like the Spanish footballers, the Michelin chefs, Rafa Nadal, and those fashion store moguls got to where they are by being lazy?? No, the Spanish know how to work hard and efficiently.

      None of that is relevant, except getting served quickly indicates inefficiency – employees who aren’t busy can respond quicker.

      That’s an odd comment. If the bar staff take ages to notice you and serve your drink, then they’re efficient? Sorry, but when I see an attendant faffing about in Starbucks to serve up (eventually) a mediocre coffee I see inefficiency. In inverse proportion to their marketing which has been superb. As it happens I see Mcds staff serve customers quickly too – now they ARE efficient, but I’m not a fan of their product

      Spain’s problem is not laziness, its that they are paid to much for what they do. The country needs an internal devaluation – its wages need to fall 25% and then stay there. Normally a currency devaluation would achieve this but Spain cannot do it. Germany is much more productive as they have forgone 10years of pay rises and they are economically merged with Spain.

      The UK had a 25% devaluation which is possibly the reason why unemployment has been falling in the UK and rising in Spain, Spains productivity is not good.

      Actually its exports performance over the last 3-4 years has been very good in Spain. Despite the devaluation and 350 billion qe, and the ability to borrow money more cheaply, in the UK they have performed no better.

      Despite being part of the euro, Spain has managed to turn a huge trade deficit of 10% of GDP in 2007 into a small surplus now. Britain, with its own currency, is still living beyond its means with a net export deficit of around 1%, modestly down from the 3.5% of 2007.

      http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?storyid=9714

    • #112612
      katy
      Blocked

      Marcos why do you bother keep going in Starbucks 😕 I don’t “see” anything in them as I don’t enter. You mention them so much it is beginning to look personal.

    • #112613
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @katy wrote:

      Marcos why do you bother keep going in Starbucks 😕 I don’t “see” anything in them as I don’t enter. You mention them so much it is beginning to look personal.

      I don’t have that much choice if I fancy a coffee around my part of Marylebone. It’s all Costa or Starbucks places – well there are some cafeterias near to Edgware Road but I’ve not found a decent coffee there either. I’ll have to try those places on M high street one day, but they have “tourist trap” screaming all over them…
      Camden has a decent Portuguese place for coffee, and there are others scattered around the capital, mainly Italian or Portuguese. But it’s all relative. I wouldn’t claim there are many places to get decent tea in Madrid either – I only know one off-hand.

    • #112614
      angie
      Blocked

      Give me a Spanish coffee or one from most Continental countries any day over a Starbucks one, at least there’s more uniformity with continental coffees IMO 😉

      We stopped going into Starbucks when they kept serving up far too large and too hot cartons of brown hot water, it was difficult to taste the coffee, and they are so overpriced too 🙄 Actually do prefer Costa over them though 😛

      Back to the rising unemployment rate in Spain, I can’t see them being able to afford it for much longer 🙄

    • #112617
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @angie wrote:

      Give me a Spanish coffee or one from most Continental countries any day over a Starbucks one, at least there’s more uniformity with continental coffees IMO 😉

      We stopped going into Starbucks when they kept serving up far too large and too hot cartons of brown hot water, it was difficult to taste the coffee, and they are so overpriced too 🙄 Actually do prefer Costa over them though 😛

      Back to the rising unemployment rate in Spain, I can’t see them being able to afford it for much longer 🙄

      Well as mentioned before, at some point the govt will take away the dole money (already they don’t get the housing benefit as per the UK)
      The unemployed will have 2 choices – either stay at home and sponge off the parents (or increasingly the retired grandparents – at least the pension is still rising). Or move abroad for work, like the Poles have had to do. Germany has made a bee-line for Spanish workers, and recently Saudi Arabia announced it had up to 100,000 places for Spanish nurses – there aren’t that many unemployed in Spain, around 9,000, but the attraction of a tax free income may entice some to leave their highly taxed job in Spain. It’s not necessarily bad for the individual (I knew people back in the 80s who earnt enough from Saudi to buy their new home in the UK) but it does make the internal market very depressed. The Spanish have to concentrate on jobs and exports abroad (or foreign tourist income), as internal demand is weak.

    • #112621
      Anonymous
      Participant

      “Starbucks to serve up (eventually) a mediocre coffee” and you still go them ????.

      A Resturant/Bar is not a good example as they are normally run by a family where the owners know’s the majority of their patrons. The family team works in the interest of the bar and there is no rift of employer/employee relationship of one feeling that one is being exploited or other feels that the staff is not pulling their weight.

    • #112624
      angie
      Blocked

      BBC say 40,000 Spaniards left Spain in first 6 months of this year to find work abroad, many of whom have gained good degrees, they’re fed up with the austerity measures and lack of jobs, some interviewed were very damning of Spain.

      Also, the same report says there are now 77,000 Spaniards living and working in the UK which is their No1 choice, these Spaniards are hard working well educated and the UK has them now, most don’t think they will return to Spain. Sounds like outward investment from Spain 🙄

    • #112626
      katy
      Blocked

      Suppose their no.1 choice has nothing to do with a range of benefits 🙄

    • #112627
      angie
      Blocked

      UK benefits system most probably draws them, however the report gave the impression that most (of the 77,000) were settled and working in the UK permanently. Certainly those interviewed outside a Spanish restaurant in London did appear to be well educated, clean cut young men, professionals too, really determined to get work here 🙄

    • #112629
      Chopera
      Participant

      @UBEDA wrote:

      The thing is now I am reluctant to change employer, not only because I have built up a nice redundancy pay off, but also I realise that there’s a risk of ending up back working for an exploitative company again. In the UK I would be freelancing by now, but in Spain all the benefits lie with finding an ok job with an ok company, keeping your head down, and hoping to be made redundant after 20 years. It’s not the kind of attitude that tends to fire up the economy, but it is an attitude shared by virtually everyone I know in Spain

      😡 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡

      Chopera, you are a great example why Spain is stuck in the doldrums; lazy, unambitious, work shy just waiting to get your mitts on the finiquito (termination pay off) … with all the austerity coming, screwing down by co’s, higher demands for productivity not to mention inflation you are all being catapulted back fifteen years and you dont even realise it 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

      the future is not going to be the same for workers, it’s time they all woke up and got off their butt!!!

      I bow to your expertise in completely missing the point

    • #112632
      Anonymous
      Participant

      I reckon that the true unemployment rate in Spain is really 50%, that is one in two of the workforce is unemployed rather than the official figure of 24%. Those who are in work are either working in the black economy or are doing part-time low-paid menial work. Kind of makes you wonder why house prices in Spain rose to such dizzying heights during the boom given that Spain doesn’t have an economy and is now an economic basket case.

    • #112633
      DBMarcos99
      Participant

      @jakesuper wrote:

      . Those who are in work are either working in the black economy or are doing part-time low-paid menial work.

      Do you really think that lawyers, air traffic controllers, bankers, doctors etc are doing low-paid work?
      Do you really think the directors at a company like Inditex are low-paid? http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/08/14/inenglish/1344945273_865076.html
      Do you really think that the people working at Real Madrid are low paid (not just the footballers, the staff, the physios, the marketing guys etc)? Remember it’s the world’s top earning football club – over 500 million euros last year.
      Do you really think the IT guys at Whisbi, just bought out by German marketing giants Bertelsmann, are low paid? http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/09/18/bertelsmann-invests-spains-whisbi-helps-increase-online-sales-live-video-agents/
      Do you really think the Malaga guys at the virus protection firm VirusTotal, just bought out by Google, are low paid? http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/07/google-acquires-online-virus-malware-and-url-scanner-virustotal/
      I could go on and on, but maybe you will see the point. There are a lot of people struggling now, some without work, and some forced to work on the black. But don’t be fooled, there are still a lot who are doing alright. Why do you think Apple are opening their stores in various Spanish cities? Last month it was Valladolid, this month in Zaragoza – where Europe’s biggest shopping mall has just been opened.
      Nice to see you back Bruno btw!

    • #112634
      Chopera
      Participant

      @jakesuper wrote:

      I reckon that the true unemployment rate in Spain is really 50%, that is one in two of the workforce is unemployed rather than the official figure of 24%. Those who are in work are either working in the black economy or are doing part-time low-paid menial work. Kind of makes you wonder why house prices in Spain rose to such dizzying heights during the boom given that Spain doesn’t have an economy and is now an economic basket case.

      So why does 76% of the population claim to be working?

      Are you suggesting that most of them aren’t really working but declaring that they are so they get to pay taxes rather than claim benefits? I don’t think that’s quite how the black economy works 😕 😕 😕

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