Are We Losing A Generation?
Núria Matamoros Fabregat is from Alcanar, the southernest town in Catalunya.
Catalunya is the richest region in Spain, but Núria is going through hard times. She is 23 and she is doing a Master in European integration. Her dream would be to work for the European institutions: her present is the fear to become one of the 5 million jobless Spanish.
Núria is the symbol of a generation: if we lose her as well as plenty of young guys and girls like her, Europe will face a dark future.
A warning for all the readers: you will not read this on EurActiv.
TS: Núria, why did you decide to study European affairs? What drove your interest towards Europe?
NMF: I have to say that I’ve always been interested in politics: this is what drove me to study Political Science. During these four years, I increased my knowledge of the European Union. I decided to go to Toulouse for my Erasmus and there I became familiar with European law and with issues related to European politics.
As many people from my generation, I’ve been involved with the change of our national currency into the Euro, and I started to be more and more interested about the European Union because I was astonished in how much its policies can affect our everyday life.
TS: How does the situation look in Spain? Do you think the change of government will make a difference?
NMF: The situation is not good. Everybody seems worried, not only the people who are unemployed or young students as me. For us it is probably worse, as we are looking for a future and we don’t see a clear one: we are especially sad because we don’t know if we will have a job.
The new government promised a change, a solution for the crisis, but I’m not sure that they have the keys to solve the issue. If they had the answers, maybe they’d already begun to translate them into policy. Instead, for the moment, I see no improvement. The new government will just follow what Germany says, as the rest of the European Union does: now more than ever because both Spain and Germany have conservative governments.
TS: How many young people like you are looking for a job in your town?
NMF: Well, the majority of young people from my home town is studying in Barcelona, Tarragona or in another city in order to obtain a good university degree (how great would this be if it happened in Italy, noa). But the ones who stay, live with their family, while waiting for a job to pop up. Currently, the problem is the crisis: but before that, we also had problems in finding jobs because Alcanar is a small town (she says “farmer’s village”, noa). I’m living in Barcelona, and it’s true that many young people are looking for a grant, a traineeship, or a job, and it’s so hard to find something related to what we study.
TS: Do you believe that the current political class is able to understand how hard it is for our generation to make plans for the future? When they speak about “sovereign debt”, do you think we - as a generation - should be bearing the duty to repay it?
NMF: They do think about it. I mean, of course they know it is impossible for students to find a job at the end of their study path. But my question is always the same: Don’t they have a family? Don’t they have children? And if they do, aren’t they worried for them?
I don’t know if we –as a generation- should be the ones repaying the debt, but the truth is that for a long time we – as a society - used the Welfare State in an abusive way, and now we are paying the consequences of that. Moreover, at some point, at least in Spain, not only the government but also the Banks encouraged the citizens to borrow money. I hope the government does something against the institutions that have promoted this policy.
TS: What do you think is the main problem that we have to face and what can we do for our countries and for Europe?
NMF: Selfishly, I think that governments should start creating jobs, especially for young people. I also believe that the governments should punish companies that went bankrupt and laid off workers, and help companies who create jobs. Because for me is the most important thing, the reality that I live in with my family. I studied for a degree and I didn’t find a job, I was a whole year looking for one, here in Alcanar and also in Barcelona.
My father is unemployed. My mother works part-time and she considers herself lucky. In my family, we are the two sisters: we both study. My sister is twenty and she is doing her degree and I am studying a Master, because everybody says that without a specialization you are nobody. But the reality is: companies want experience in a young person, and not an old person with experience.
I think that my father has a lot of experience: but nobody wants him, because he is fifty-six. On the other hand, companies who interview me are proud of my studies, but they say: “you don’t have enough experience”. So my frustration is: “what kind of experience do you expect me to have? If I can’t get an internship anywhere, where am I supposed to earn my experience?” .
That’s the reality. And that’s why I think creating jobs is a priority.
TS: Don’t you think our generation has the potential and the capacities to create a better world than the one we’ve inherited from our fathers?
NMF: In terms of culture (studies, knowelge…), our generation is already a step ahead. Our fathers fought hard to get to this point and we are lucky to be where we are.
I am scared because I never had to suffer like them: I am not used to struggle. I mean, they had nothing and they fought and they got a better life. But we are used to a comfortable lifestyle, and maybe in the future we’ll have to suffer and to fight to keep this lifestyle.
A better answer to this question can only be given when jobs are created (for me, this is more important than growth).
TS: Thank you, Nùria, for giving us a flavour of how does this crisis look like from the side of the people.
If these bureaucrats read you, maybe they will understand that European citizens are not simply numbers on a Eurostat table.
Young Catalan people face a drama: from school to unemployment
The number of unemployed seeking their first job hits a record.
Today, a growing number of young people give up even looking for work or futher study to fatten the group “neither-nor” (in spanish “ni-ni”): neither work nor studing.
Youth has traditionally been the most important characteristic of people seeking their first job without success. In recent times the carácter has grown and has reached a record 58,400 people aged 16 to 24 who are unemployed, 75,5% of the total. Moreover, women are having more difficulty in finding their first job, with a rate of 51,4% amongst unemployed..
Finding a job is difficult:
Entering the labor market for the first time is a slow and complicated task. 112.200 people went on for over two years looking for a job and for 120.000 it took between one and two years. With the crisis, these figures have clearly increased: for the first time in the last term of 2011, 200.000 people looked for more than a year for their first job without success.
Compete with the rest:
Another key to the current situation for new employees is the hard competition with other job seekers: those who are looking for their first job have to compete with the 394,400 workers who lost it last year and with some 167,300 long-term unemployed.
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