With more than 13% of the unemployed population and the second worst position in the European Union, only behind Greece , it is not that Spain can say that its labor market is precisely wide. But the truth is that if it is work for young people, it is much less.

The labor market that has emerged with the economic recovery has a large gap in this group: 1.7 million workers lost in the last 12 years , according to a report from the Ministry of Labor published this September. It is a more flexible market, but also more aged, because in the same period the active population has grown by 1.3 million people, partly thickened by the generation that was less than 30 years old in 2007, a generation whose replacement is noticeably less numerous

The size of this generational hole has an easy representation if it is taken into account that it is equivalent to the entire population of Barcelona , according to the data of the National Statistics Institute (INE). If the second largest Spanish capital were populated solely by this group of young people of working age, I would have seen the disappearance of the segment between 25 and 30 years old (1.2 million young people, equivalent to the sum of Seville and Zaragoza ) disappear, which generally corresponds to the most formed. In smaller (524,000) to those who have more difficulties to enter the labor market, but also less urgency.

In pre-crisis Spain, when construction was the main driver of employment, the active population between 16 and 29 years old was 8.4 million people. Today, that figure amounts to 6.7 million people, that is, 20% lower. Between active and inactive, one out of every five potential workers that existed in the times of the real estate boom has disappeared, times in which, it must be said, the credit-free bar was doping the economy.

The comparison with a current scenario in which finances remain depressed may be poorly adjusted in their bases. But the fact is that not even with a fifth less than competitors the opportunities to find work are greater for the youth group. Today, with two million fewer people active, the unemployment figure exceeds 194,000 people in 2007.

In the post-crisis labor market, training has become a much more determining factor than it was. "The level of studies achieved determines the situation of the population in the labor market: at a higher level of studies the situation within the market is more favorable and vice versa," explains the Young and Labor study prepared by the Government.

In its analysis of youth unemployment, the State Public Employment Service points out that "where there is a higher percentage of unemployed people, it is at the lower levels of training that amount to 72.98%, while in the degrees of professional training and university studies the incidence is not as pronounced; of the 87,274 young people in long-term unemployment, only 7.96% have a university degree and 13.25% of professional training ".

However, the study indicates that the economic recovery has brought improvements that in the last year have resulted in a 24% employment rate for young people up to 24 years old and 68% for those between 25 and 29 years old, a latter rate that already exceeds that which applies to the total population of working age.

In December of last year, the Government presented its Youth Employment Shock Plan , an initiative agreed with unions and employers that offered an expenditure of 2,000 million euros in active policies for this group between 2019 and 2021. The objective of reducing The unemployment rate at 23.5% from the current 24.8%, adding 168,000 young people under 25 years of age to the employed group, relies heavily on training. Also in promoting a "competitive job offer" to "contribute to the return of young emigrants who left our country for not finding a professional outlet in Spain"

However, as with much of the economy, the real capacity of the plan is very conditioned by the instability that has dominated politics for four years. As published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), the commitments of the Youth Employment Shock Plan the commitments "are conditional on the budgetary availability available in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, in accordance with the path of fiscal consolidation set by the Government. " Two months later, if presented and approved in Congress, the lower house rejected the General State Budget (PGE) presented by Pedro Sánchez , including the 670 million euros per year to recover opportunities for young people.

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  • Pedro Sanchez
  • job
  • economy
  • Unemployment

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