Spain on the Back Foot in Bid to Tackle Youth Unemployment

This article discusses the issue of youth unemployment in Spain and its impact on the economy and personal lives of the people. It analyzes the causes of unemployment and the measures taken to address the problem.

Running head: SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
Spain on the back foot in bid to tackle youth unemployment
Name of the Student
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Author Note

1SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
Every economy of the world has certain number of people who are enrolled in the work
force. This is essential for the survival of the people. In order to survive, people need to earn a
basic means of livelihood (Dom et al. 2016). This income of the people comes from them being
employed in the different industries and other work places within the concerned nation state.
Often times, it is also noticed that people migrate to the other parts of the world in order to earn a
higher source of livelihood. They are of the idea that if they shift to some developed parts of the
world, then they would be able to afford a higher standard of living. The need among all the
individuals of all the nation states of the world is to be able to enjoy a decent standard of living
(Alarcón, Aguilar and Galán 2019). The main contention of people in the developing and the
under developed countries if the world is that they are not able to earn their desired level of
income. Another important problem that can be analyzed from the point of view of the under
developed and developing nation states is that the number of work force population is more than
the number of available jobs (Mucci et al. 2016). This creates a problem for those who are not
meritorious enough or do not have influential connections with the important people of the
world. In this regard, it can be seen that such countries often face the problem of unemployment
(Shakina and Barajas 2016). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the element of
unemployment and how it affects the different fields of human life. In this regard, Spain has been
taken in to consideration. The paper discusses how Spain faced unemployment and how it
impacted the economy of the country as well as the personal lives of the people.
Unemployment refers to the economic situation where a willing worker is unable to get
an advantageous form of employment through which significant changes can be brought about in
his or her standard of life (Crescenzi, Luca and Milio 2016). For instance, if an individual is
willing to work and he or she is unable to get work or employment is any place, then it can be

2SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
said that the situation of unemployment is prevailing within that place. Unemployment has a
significant impact on the economy of a country as unemployment shows that the state is unable
to effectively utilize the various resources in a potential manner (Regidor et al. 2016). The
underutilization of resources, such as the human capital points to the inability of the nation state
to improve itself in a timely manner. However, such an economic understanding of
unemployment is unable to grasp the deeper significance of this issue. From a sociological
perspective, it can be observed that unemployment affects the personal lives of the individuals to
a significant level. The unemployed people are unable to afford even the basic means of
subsistence such as food, clothing and shelter (Laliotis, Ioannidis and Stavropoulou 2016).
Furthermore, their standard of living is also affected in an adverse manner since the without any
monetary resources, they cannot look after themselves or their families. In this sense, the lives of
the unemployed individuals are quite miserable in nature and impacts their standing in the
society.
Spain is located in the European continent and is considered to be the biggest country
located in Southern Europe. The market structure of Spain is structured in the form of a capitalist
market whereby the different industries of the country compete with each other in order to
maximize their profit motive (Ibl, Svoboda and Siegert 2018). This small country hosts many
people who try to find a source of livelihood in the country itself. Being an European country,
many individuals of Spain believe that they would be able to lead a decent life as does the other
European people, since majority of the countries of the continent are developed in nature.
The economy of the country faced a back lash after the recession it experienced in the
year of 2008 (Cordero and Simón 2016). The entire global economic market faced many adverse
consequences as a result of this depression. Depression refers to that economic situation whereby

3SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
a particular nation state of the world experiences a slow down in the different economic interests.
The slow down affects the functioning process of the industries where the level of production
falls to the critical level (Madsen and Olesen 2016). This affects the salary and wages that are
earned by the employees as without providing the necessary production to the business firms
they work in, they are not paid the full amount. However, during times of economic depression,
the number of job prospects severely reduces. As a result of this, the employees try to hold on to
their jobs even if they do not get paid their salary. In these times, the employees are desirous of
retaining their jobs as the other people of the labor work force are waiting in line to take their
jobs (Carreira and Teixeira 2016). The economic depression occurred during this time as a result
of the fall in the prices of the real estates. The real estates experienced nearly a thirty percent
decline in their prices in a sudden manner and as a consequence of this, the stock market faced a
severe crisis. Banks were not able to give any more loans and the loans which were given by
them earlier, could not be recovered (Aizenman et al. 2008). This led to the rise of inflation rates
in such countries which negatively affected the economies of the countries concerned.
Spain experienced a severe form of unemployment as a result of this depression which
was seen in the year 2008. Although the world was able to effectively tackle the recession that
followed, there were many countries which were unable to handle the situation. One of such
countries was that of Spain (Vassilopoulou et al. 2018). The period of Depression hit the Spanish
people in a significant manner where the labor work force is still affected. Many people of the
state are unable to find any employment opportunities even in the year 2013. This, in turn has
affected their source of livelihood and consequently, the living standards of the concerned
people. This also affected the economy of the region.

4SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
White and Rodriguez wrote a news article where the unemployment rate of Spain was
analyzed in an in-depth manner (Reuters, 2017). Both the correspondents were of the idea that a
solution to the problem had to be found. This is due to the fact that the Spanish labor force was
negatively affected ad they were unable to come out of the situation without finding the proper
and effective solution. In this regard, the solution provided by the entire continent of Europe can
be analyzed. There were several important job opportunities that were financed by Europe in
order to ensure that the different countries of the continent would benefit from the solution
(Coveney et al. 2016). This aimed to provide help to a number of different groups in the
continent such as the unemployed laborers, the politicians and the family members of the labor
work force.
This economic recession was seen in the context of Spain. The depression was felt
mainly due to the housing bubble that occurred. During this time, the government of Spain
experienced a surplus in its revenue where by the construction properties and the property sector
observed an increase in the tax revenue. In this scenario, the Spanish Government favored the
competitive attitude of its industries and therefore, order the banks of the nation state to violate
the standards of Banking as set out by the International Accounting Standards Board (Reuters,
2017). The main objective of the Spanish government was therefore to ensure the high growth
rate of the Gross Domestic Product of the country. This had a wide spread impact on the society
of the state where the economic depression hit the hardest (Raźniak, Dorocki and Winiarczyk-
Raźniak 2018). As a result of so many loans given by the banks and their failure to recover them,
the economic faced an economic crisis. The government ran out of surpluses and the labor work
force was left to fend for themselves.

5SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
However, in the context of Spain, it can be noticed that there were many people below
the age of twenty five years who formed the majority part of the labor work force. This proved to
be disadvantageous for the Spanish politicians and administrators as youth unemployment
contributed to the decrease in the value of the Euro. It also proved to the greatest obstacle in the
road of economic recovery of Spain (Kern, Marien and Hooghe 2015). Another problem that
Spain faced was the mindless use of the financial resources that were given to them. European
Union tried hard to provide job opportunities and training program to the different countries of
the continent. In this regard, the news article stated that Spain spend a lot of the monetary
resources given to them to move up the deadlines where around 1.9 billion Euros were spend on
training programs (Reuters, 2017). This invited the public out cry where the people protested that
the spending of so much money would prove to the negative as such training programs would not
positively reflect on the production process of the business firm or the kind of employment
needed.
The employment situation in Spain was quite a difficult time. Spain was on verge of
giving full employment to the entire labor class of the country by the year of 2008. However,
with the impact of economic depression, the country was pulled back to the times of 1996 where
the employment rate was very worse. In the year 2008, Spain became the worst performing
country of the European continent as the unemployment rate was unprecedented (Hardouvelis et
al. 2018). The country recorded the worst rate in employment ever in the human history. By the
end of March, 2009, the unemployment rate of Spain was as high as seventeen percent. For this,
it can be gathered that the number of people without jobs during this time had almost doubled
than what it was in the previous year. By July of the same year, Spain had an unemployment rate
of Italy and France combined. More than five million people had lost their job within this

6SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
country. By the time it was 2012, the unemployment rate of Spain was twenty four percent. This
was the average unemployment rate of the entre European Union (Thomson et al. 2015). This
shows the dire consequences of the country that its citizens had to ensure. It was during this time
that the trade unions of the labor work force decided to organize itself in an effective manner
which would protest for the rights and freedom of the employed people. By the end of 2012, the
different factory owners agreed to increase the labor cost of the workers only marginally.
However, it provide to be a huge win for the work force population as even a marginal change in
their salary was highly welcomed. Spain also followed the policy of internal devaluation where
by the different products and services of the country were made affordable to the people of the
state.
Madrid, the capital of Spain, in its attempts to solve the further crisis that it has caused,
has stated that the funds that were given as a grant to them was used to pay off the youth of the
country who did not get the necessary salary as a result of the economic recession. However, in
its effort to ensure that the youth are not left disgruntled, the government of Spain misused the
relief fund that was provided by the European Union (Farnsworth and Irving 2015). In this
respect, the country experienced further levels of unemployment even in the latter years. In the
latter years, the different nation states of the world had been able to recover their economic and
social situation to a considerable degree, but not Spain. This affected the economy of the country
in a negative way as it continued to face losses even when the situation had stabilized world
wide. At this time, the government of Spain realized the need to introduce new measures which
would help to improve the long lasting economic crisis being faced by the citizens of the
country. However, in this regard it can be seen that the country faced several important obstacles
in which the economic recovery was made hard.

7SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
One of the ways in which the economic recovery of Spain was propsed by the European
Union was to ensure the country first would pay off the workers from their own resources. It
would then charge the European Union for more money. Furthermore, it was recommended to
Spain that it should try to minimize its public expenditures (Campos-Soria, Inchausti-Sintes and
Eugenio-Martin 2015). Public expenditures form a lot of burden on the states. The finances for
public expenditure comes from the purse of the country itself. As a result, Spain faced a lot of
problems as the government did not have any additional finances to give to the people in the
form of public expenditures after paying off the labor work force. However, in spite of its
limitations, the Spanish government tried hard to under take several work for the benefit of the
people and this further put a burden on the governmental officials.
In conclusion it can be observed that the economic depression that occurred in the world
in the year 2008 had a severe impact on the various states of the world. However, the country
that faced the most severe back lash was Spain of the European continent. The analysis of the
economic situation of this country is important since it belongs to one of the most developed
parts of the world. Most of the countries of the European continent are considered to be
developed and advanced due to the superior knowledge that they possess. The fact that Spain.
Belonging to this continent, was affected so adversely, made many researchers to be intrigued
with the country. The analysis of the economic crisis in the context of Spain shows that the
country faced a severe problem in the form of unemployment. The country which was at one
point of time on the verge to attain full employment, in the year of 2008, was experiencing wide
scale form of unemployment. After a few years, the unemployment level rose to nearly twenty
four percent which was more than the average of all the countries of the European Union.

8SPAIN ON THE BACK FOOT IN BID TO TACKLE YOUTH
UNEMPLOYMENT
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