Spain has led a legacy as a significant world power in Europe and at some moments in History, the world. Spain conquered the oceans with Christopher Columbus travels, started dynasties that created Charles Avis Holy Roman Empire. Although, Like all great dynasties have been fated to do, the Empire fell from the leading Empire of the world and eventually In Europe. It wasn’t until after the Dictator Francisco Franc’s death in 1975, when Spain was again able to resume its share of economic and political strength in Europe.
With a new democratic monarchical system and an economy that quickly adapted to the international market, Spain was able to rapidly assume it role as a European leader once again. In 1986 Spain joined the European Union, and thanks to an economic boom in the construction business in the asses, Spain’s economy and society accelerated into a bigger world power. Currently economically speaking, Spain has the fifth biggest economy of the countries in the European Union, with Gross Domestic Product over one million Euros, as is set to have the fourteenth highest GAP in the world by 2015.
However, after the world economic carols of 2008, Spain was not exempt from the affects that the crisis was to bring for all countries. The era knows as el period De bonanza as the Spanish called It came to an end, and a new era known to be called la carols came to birth. Although there are many results of the economic crash of 2008, it is in my opinion that in Spain, the most devastating of these effects is the unemployment rate. Spain’s unemployment rate is currently at 26. 03%, the second highest rate right behind Grace’s staggering 27. % unemployment rate. Even more staggering is the fact that Spain has the highest youth unemployment rate of the EX. with around 51% of Spanish young people aged between 20 and 24 listed as unemployed. There have been multiple reasons given for the recent downturn, the most obvious and stated being the world economic crisis of 2008, which abruptly ended the construction boom that dominated the economy. Since 2008 the Spanish unemployment has been on the Increase, even when there seem to be small decreases soon enough the rate returns to a consistent Increase.
To put this number of unemployment Into perspective, the U. S. Unemployment rate was around 25% during the Great Depression. Although Spain’s has had high unemployment rates in the past, specifically during Franc’s dictatorship, those rates surrounded an economy and society more rural and economically limited. The effects of this recession, with the unemployment rate actually increasing at a steady rate, problems like foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies, starvation, and even health risks will increase as well.
In this paper, I will identify the reasoning why the unemployment rate skyrocketed up to 26%, explain Spain’s current economical and societal situation, examining the question as to why the rate has continued to Increase years after the construction bubble burst. And finally what should be done In opinion If Spain wants to gain control of the situation and start creating solutions rather than adding to the problems.
Although there are many factors that contribute to Spain’s unemployment rate, including the counters job market, immigration and emigration numbers, post employees’ wages, the banking crisis, the underground economy, and the disputes between unions and employers, I believe the issues surrounding education are the most important when dealing with the unemployment rate. Spain’s biggest concern is TTS unemployment rate, and if the country truly wants to rid itself of the 2008 economic crisis’s effects than it needs to make short term and long terms goals surrounding education.
The topics of education reform, Early School Leavers (SSL) and the over-education of Spaniards are all interconnected with the other possible factors of Spain’s unemployment rate, which is why I believe a solution surrounding education in Spain will bring the swiftest cure to the country’s unemployment rate ere financial crisis of 2008 wrecked many countries around the world with bank failings, stock market failings, business failures, and a general decline in consumer spending around the world.
However, for Spain, the factor of the financial crisis of 2008 was the housing market’s downturn. Its economic boom of the asses appeared to be the countries savior, as “two thirds of the housing units built in Europe between 1999 and 2007 were built in Spain” (Elton 43), displaying the importance the housing market was for Spain at the time. For that time period, there was a surplus of Job opportunities in the construction business, as well as other related industries.
These ebb opportunities provided local Spaniards as well as a strong influx of immigrant Markers with steady work without any previous kinds of education required. As Gamma Lorraine explains in her article “Out-migration of immigrants in Spain,” Spain was historically an emigration country from 1900 to the early asses (Lorraine 2013 214). It wasn’t until Spain’s housing market began to see growth that Spain actually became a major receiving country of immigrants.
As Lorraine indicates, “In 1999, there were 650,000 foreign-born individuals in Spain (1. 6% of the total population), while by 2009 their number had risen to 5,650,000 (12% of the total population), even ranking second in the world behind the United States in Immigration rates (Lorraine 2013 214-5). However these immigrants were not directly adding to Unemployment, because they were getting Jobs Just as frequently as the next person. It was when the housing market crashed when thousands of employees lost their Jobs.
Spain’s booming period in the decade prior to the 2008 collapse was “not structurally sound” as Sanity points out, and the employment gains that were made by the housing market did not last. For one, by investing solely in the construction sector of the economy, the cheap banks loans taken by companies created Jobs for the high rise of immigrants in the construction industry, as well as bobs in the areas of services, tourism, agriculture, and households, and it was these cheap bank loans that further launched Spain into recession (Elton).
Another explanation for the current unemployment rate is its connection with the country’s trade deficit. Although Spain was heavily profiting from its economic boom of the asses, the country’s trade deficit actually increased from 2000 to 2007 (Sanity 2013) even with a booming growth period of exports. Sanity believes this to demonstrate how Spain, rather than investing in domestic industries which could eave created more domestic Jobs for the country, goods were imported (Sanity creation to fall back on, which left thousands of workers out of Jobs, and youths Mahout blue-collar positions to look forward to.
This problem in the labor market may not have been the sole purpose for the high unemployment rate, but with a trade deficit on hand; importing more and more foreign goods into the country was not a policy the government should have embraces. If Spain had instead invented the money gained from the housing market boom of the asses into their workers, ‘Spanish good and service” could have become competitive as well as Spain economic productivity possibly rising, which it did not even with the economic growth Sanity 2013).
This competitiveness could have been utilized internationally, keeping and creating Jobs in Spain rather than “expanding the trade deficit and allowing Jobs to go abroad” (Sanity 2013), making Spain a competitive and innovate economy to compete with the likes of Great Britain and Germany, the powerhouses of the European Union. With the trade deficit and the construction market failure predominantly contributing to the unemployment rate of Spain Just after the 2008 crisis, it makes ensue that the unemployment rate completely skyrocketed at an abnormally fast rate. He construction bubble dominated Spain’s economy as well as controlled the policy makers’ decisions within the government to make decisions enhancing the construction industry rather than plugging the money back into Spain’s own economy and citizens. Spain should have been thinking about contributing its financial gains towards its own situation. Planning out educational programs and reforms could have superseded the staggering growth of the unemployment rate and prevented other effects of la crisis from happening.
However, the only prevention Spain needs to be focused on is preventing unsuccessful and indirect austerity measures which do not consider education as a suitable solution to the unemployment problem. Henceforth, with a clearer view of what the initial problem for the unemployment rate, there are still some unanswered questions, such as how the unemployment is still on the rise, only recently dipping down, which could be Just momentarily at this point in time. Austerity measures are measures taken by the government to reduce the budget deficit for a given country.
It is a collection of these failed austerity assures and other contributing factors that the unemployment is still on the rise. Although I believe solving the education debate will solve the situation, it is first necessary to figure out what additionally is not working for Spain and then connect those finding to the education problem. Andrea Elton outlined the main stimulating and restrictive measures taken by the Spanish government in her essay “The Economic Crisis and Its Management in Spain. The stimulating measures taken between 2008 and 2009 focused on tax reductions and allowances for families and companies, 11 billion Euros of special funds towards creating local employment, purport of bank lending of non financial companies and individuals, 4 billion Euros of stimulus towards the automotive industry and finally economic modernization, specifically reform measure for energy telecoms, transport and the service sector of Spain’s economy (Elton 2013 46).
With these stimulating measures taken effect directly after the world financial crisis, one would think a dent would be put into the the only solution which can incorporate all the stimulation measures done here. For example, reform in energy and other services can be promoted if educational institutions open up studies towards a more vocational approach, allowing for students to focus on broader studies that can have more of a relative appliance to the current country’s situation. One current discussion that is under debate is whether or not the current welfare state of Spain is contributing to the unemployment rate.
In Pedro Schwartz article ‘The Welfare State as an Underlying Cause of Spain’s Debt Crisis,” the argument is made that it is not Just “the bursting of the housing bubble and the subsequent contraction of the housing market” which drove Spain’s unemployment rate into cord breaking highs (2013 Schwartz 279). In fact, Schwartz agrees that the fast growth of the Joblessness in Spain can be attributed to the construction industry close ties to Spain’s economy; however, there are other factors that Schwartz presents to which after the 2008 economic crisis took place also began to apply to the crisis.
The idea that being unemployed has different conditions for different groups of people in Spain. For one, although he unemployment rate in around 26% for Spain as a whole, the youth unemployment rate is around 55% (Schwartz 280), more than half of the country’s youth. However, what I see wrong in Schwartz article is not that he is incorrect in stating the welfare system inhibits the unemployment rate, but rather the author gives Off tone that he is not a firm supporter of the welfare system and state to begin with.
Schwartz rants for a whole paragraph saying: Women use repeated pregnancies to extend their reliance on welfare. Men elude responsibility for their offspring. Families shift the burden of educating their children onto the state. People do not save for health care or pension. Governments react to unemployment by increasing the minimum wage. Rent seeker decry competition, especially from the poor… Meanwhile, the problems of the welfare state refuse to go away. Schwartz 2013 276) Of course there will be people who use and abuse the Enlarge system in the long run, but a statement like this identifies the root problem as the welfare state, as how the system itself in inherently causing the unemployment rate to remain at dangerously high levels. There may be some cultural and societal trends that are leaning towards this kind of mindset for the average Spaniard, and whether or not this is the honest case can be researched and abated, but it does underscore some of the legitimacy of the article.
The welfare system helps people in Spain in the areas of health, pensions, education, and unemployment benefits. So if there were one thing it could use for change it would be the distribution of those funds. The problem I see with these efforts to implement reforms again is not that they are structurally ineffective but rather the motives behind the reforms do not appear to directly be suited to help the Spanish people. The reforms are more so aimed towards outside investors rather than Spain’s actual citizens.
While “rising labor radioactivity, moderating labor costs, and lower inflation have helped to improve foreign investor interest” as pointed out by the CIA World Fact book, and it is this goal competitive with foreign markets and securing ties with foreign investors will create some security for an economy with an uncertain future, but foreign investors would be Just as intrigued by a Spanish Job market full of a competent and innovative Spanish workforce, readied by a reformed education system that prepared them with location skills that would allow them to excel.
The problem also cannot be blamed on immigration levels, although it is certain to e an overwhelming excuse made by cultural views. Lorraine point out again that ‘net migration became a negative in 2012. The number of entrants dwindled, and many residents-immigrants in particular – started leaving the country’ (Lorraine 2013 213), which identifies a new trend of immigrants leaving the country rather than the typical influx Spain had seen the last decade.
Although after the housing market crash in 2008 many immigrants were left Jobless, the fact that now they are leaving the country only add evidence that immigrants were not a big contributor to the unemployment rate as it might have seemed. That brings us to the main solution for the unemployment rate, education reform. ere education system already in place is Spain is relatively young, seeing as it was not until Franc’s death in 1975 when modern education could be instituted and advancements could be made in the educational system.
Not to say the youth of Spain’s education system is the root of the problem though. Spain made quick and decisive decisions to ensure children were to receive the necessary education, one of the first being guaranteeing universal free education for all children from 6 to arrears old, which eventually became extended to 16 years old. This was an historic feat seeing as “half the nation’s population was illiterate at the beginning of the 20th century’ (Vallejo and Dooly 213) and the fact that Spain’s educational system has evolved this far is a feat in itself.
However, education reform has not been the most partitioned and backed aspect of the government’s budget. As said before, the housing boom did little to actually re-enhance to educational system in Spain, leaving many Spaniards who choose to work in construction or other blue-collar Jobs with little to no educational background.. Sanity also agrees that the government should Ochs more on education as a remedy to the unemployment rate, saying “the Spanish government should invest more funding in vocational education.
At present Spain’s education system is not very good, and definitely explains the high levels of youth unemployment” (Sanity 2013). If the Spanish workforce wants to remain competitive, location training needs to be an idea turned into reality if the shortage of skill Spanish workers is going to change. Without proper training and learning in other fields, the decision to remain unemployed is most times necessary or the individual’s only acceptable option.
SSL or Early School Leavers has become the forefront for the explanation of the high youth unemployment rate. Early School Leavers is described as youth individuals who either do not finish their free government paid education to the age of 16 or who only completed their primary education and decided not to go onto aged between 18 and 24, which opens up the question of why SSL is on the rise.
Vallejo and Dooly article “Early School Leavers and Social Disadvantage in Spain: from books to bricks and vice-versa,” exogenous and endogenous factors are listed as actors that have an effect on the educational system and students options of furthering his or her education as listed here: Exogenous factors are those that affect the educational system but have their origin in the social context, such as socio- economic conditions, the cultural capital of families, gender, ethnic origin, or, as mentioned above, geographical differences of SSL ratios.
Endogenous factors are understood as those dependent on the educational norms and regulations (e. G. Subjective evaluation procedures to obtain final certificates, curriculum contents and heir relation to number of years required for each cycle). (Vallejo & Dooly 2013 peg 214). The exogenous factors can be demonstrated by the differences between men’s and women’s SSL rates, whether or not the parents of the students are foreign immigrants, as well one’s economic status.
Endogenous factors are the ones that can be controlled and manipulated by the government and should There still remain some disparities amongst the SSL ratios in Spain, which beg for even a more specific way of viewing the Early School Leavers problem. A continual trend for the unemployment rate and SSL is the regional differences in the education laity of students. Historically,” Vallejo and Dooly point out, “cultural gaps between the… Better educated regions of the North and the recently literate South, and different labor structures which are based on agriculture, tourism and construction and pull students away from further education” (Vallejo and Dooly) 213.
