A little bit of mathematics

The unemployment data disclosed earlier this week have fallen like a bomb in Spain. All headlines in the media have echoed the figure of 6,000,000 unemployed persons in Spain, a 27% rate. But, beyond that dramatic number, which should be attacked as soon as possible, there are two other figures which have passed almost unnoticed and that I consider equally worrisome.

The first one refers to an unemployment rate of 40% among the foreigners living in Spain (around 5,000,000, of which around 3,300,000 are working or looking actively for a job). Such a high rate is a bomb at our core. Spain received a lot of foreign workers, mostly in the construction sector, in the years before the crisis and these workers contributed to our Social Security system. Several years after coming to Spain, once they have gone through the hard years of adaptation to the new country, they find themselves unemployed and with little perspectives of getting a job, given their previous occupations (believe me, we will not build many houses in the next ten years in Spain). Our government must tackle this problem and offer these foreign workers a real chance to get a job, be it in Spain or in their countries of origin.

In my view, the most dramatic number is that of the working population. Spain, a country with 46,000,000 inhabitants, has only 16,500,000 workers. That means that the 16,500,000 workers must pay for a group of 30,000,000 people comprising unemployed (6,000,000), children and students (schools), and retired workers (pensions and hospitals). By a simple look at the numbers, the conclusion is straightforward: that is not sustainable in the medium-term. The return to normality should be achieved by a combination of actions which should aim at increasing the number of people workin
g in Spain (this would reduce the unemployment) and at optimazing the Public Sector, so that every euro spent is really worth that euro. Otherwise, the working population will become more and more drowned in taxes and nothing will improve. Correcting this unsustainable trend shall be the first priority in our country.

Being tremendously worried as I am by the dramatic figures of unemployment, I wish to finish the blog with some optimistic anecdotal facts. Lilly is moving all her production in Europe from Germany to Spain and car manufacturers are returning to us. After all, do not forget this, we Spaniards are very hard and efficient workers.