27.2% unemployment (Spain up Shit Creek, no paddle)

[Murazor]

Link provided by the English edition of the Basque television

Number of people unemployed in Spain reaches the total of 6.2 million
The agency said the number of people unemployed rose by 237,400 people in the first three months of the year compared to the previous quarter, shooting up the rate to a record 27.2 percent.
Unemployment across Eurozone strikes record figure of 12 percent
More than six million Spaniards were out of work in the first quarter of this year, raising the jobless rate in the euro zone's fourth biggest economy to 27.2 percent, the highest since records began in the 1970s.
The huge sums poured into the global financial system by major central banks have eased bond market pressure on Spain, but the cuts Madrid has made in spending to regain investors' confidence have left it deep in recession.
Unemployment - 6.2 million in the first quarter - has been rising for seven quarters and the latest numbers will fuel a growing debate on whether to ease off on the budget austerity which has dominated Europe's response to the debt crisis.
"These figures are worse than expected and highlight the serious situation of the Spanish economy as well as the shocking decoupling between the real and the financial economy," strategist at Citi in Madrid Jose Luis Martinez said.
The collapse of a property boom driven by cheap credit has seen millions in the construction sector laid off since 2009 and private service sector, worth almost half gross domestic product, has followed as Spaniards tightened purse strings and investment plummeted.
The malaise has been made worse by billions of euros in state spending cuts and tax hikes to reduce one of the euro zone's highest deficits and convince nervous markets Spain can control its finances.
Spain and Italy's costs of borrowing hit their lowest in more than two years this week and EU officials have begun to talk openly of easing up on deficit targets.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said earlier this week that a new reform plan, to be announced on Friday, would not include more austerity measures in an effort to calm increasingly desperate Spaniards and reassure investors the country will soon be able to grow.
Protests have become commonplace across the country and thousands of police have been drafted in to Madrid to handle a march on Parliament on Thursday.
But few believe the government's plans will be ambitious enough to restart the ailing economy and create jobs. The International Monetary Fund sees Spanish unemployment at 26.5 percent next year.

Kind of big news in my corner of the world. Would have posted it on thursday, but the board was down at the time.

For those interested, the specific unemployment rate among those 25 and under is in the order of 58% or whereabouts.

[JME2]

Yeah, this does not bode well.

I keep wondering if the young adult unemployment crisis there is going to explode.

[Murazor]

I keep wondering if the young adult unemployment crisis there is going to explode.

I am not the most sociable of persons, but so far this does not appear to be the case.

It can most definitely get very ugly, very fast (the ingredients are all ready and there is a lot of frustration and anger to burn), but so far the dominant mood would seem to be grim resignation.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I am surprised by that ... When you think about 60% youth unemployment, you think about revolution, I had sort of assumed. That is a very strong spirit. Or a very crushed one.

[Guardsman Bass]

There's been some emigration, although not nearly enough to put a massive dent in the unemployed young Spanish people population. It could just be that social services and family support have been enough until now.

I'm not sure what they ought to do, either. Spain's not like Greece, where they probably should have just defaulted, dropped out of the euro, and then devalued their currency like crazy.

[Esquire]

I am surprised by that ... When you think about 60% youth unemployment, you think about revolution, I had sort of assumed. That is a very strong spirit. Or a very crushed one.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily true anymore. This isn't the result of cruel, exploitative government policy that could be solved by killing everyone in charge; the current mess came about because of market forces and will be dealt with by the same, or by manipulation of them. A revolution wouldn't accomplish anything.*

*The above is based entirely on my own uneducated view of the situation. I accept and welcome correction from those more learned.

[Vaporous]

Is the Spanish metric for unemployment similar to the one we are used to, or are we comparing different things?

[Murazor]

I am surprised by that ... When you think about 60% youth unemployment, you think about revolution, I had sort of assumed. That is a very strong spirit. Or a very crushed one.

Bit of column A, bit of column B.

There's been some emigration, although not nearly enough to put a massive dent in the unemployed young Spanish people population. It could just be that social services and family support have been enough until now.

Things seem to be accelerating.

Spain has actually lost population the last year (some two hundred thousand people, overall) .

Also, it has been because of a strong tradition of family support, combined with some social services and private charity (Caritas is doing a fuckton over here). Now that the government seems intent in slashing pensions over here, things might get ugly soon.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily true anymore. This isn't the result of cruel, exploitative government policy that could be solved by killing everyone in charge; the current mess came about because of market forces and will be dealt with by the same, or by manipulation of them. A revolution wouldn't accomplish anything.

The government is deeply, deeply incompentent and mired in several corruption scandals. The main opposition party is little better, but I kind of expect people to start lashing against the government some time soon.

Seriously, the things I could tell you.

Is the Spanish metric for unemployment similar to the one we are used to, or are we comparing different things?

The Spanish metric for unemployment is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed by the number of people in the labor force.

Different metrics might be used elsewhere, but I rather doubt it.

[Stark]

I am surprised by that ... When you think about 60% youth unemployment, you think about revolution, I had sort of assumed. That is a very strong spirit. Or a very crushed one.

LOL

Murazor, how do the Spanish calculate the labour force? In many countries, the numbers are screwed with in all kinds of ways to massage the result. Does 'labour force' mean currently employed, or working age, or what?

[Zaune]

I'm not sure if that's necessarily true anymore. This isn't the result of cruel, exploitative government policy that could be solved by killing everyone in charge; the current mess came about because of market forces and will be dealt with by the same, or by manipulation of them. A revolution wouldn't accomplish anything.

The situation sounds bad enough that the question of whether a protracted and bloody period of civil unrest will make things any better is somewhat academic. Very few revolutions have been started by people who took the time to think things through carefully before committing themselves.

[Murazor]

Murazor, how do the Spanish calculate the labour force? In many countries, the numbers are screwed with in all kinds of ways to massage the result. Does 'labour force' mean currently employed, or working age, or what?

From the page of the National Institute of Statistics of Spain.

The Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS) is a continuous quarterly survey that targets households, and it's main objective is to obtain data on the labour force (which is subcategorized by employed and unemployed), and on the people outside the labour market. The theoretical sample varies from 65.000 households per quarter, to approx. 60.000 actually interviewed households, which implies approximately 180.000 people.

The methodology of the survey is modified in 2005 due to various reasons: the need for it to adapt to the new demographic and labour reality of our country, due mainly to the increase in the number of foreign residents; the incorporation of new European regulations in accordance with the norms of the European Union Statistical Office (EUROSTAT); and finally, the introduction of improvements in the collection method.

Finally, the population base used as of the first quarter of 2005 (population base of the 2001 census) is the same as that used to calculate the 1996-2004 series (revised on March 30th 2005), thus guaranteeing the continuity of the series.

The EAPS also provides the necessary information that enables compiling the variables required in the Community Labour Force Survey (LFS), a survey that gathers standardised information in Europe regarding the labour market.

[Broomstick]

Hmm... at the height of the Great Depression US unemployment was 25% and yet there was no massive revolution or uprising. Then again, the government response (once FDR was in office) was not austerity but vastly increased spending to provide jobs and aid to the citizens.

My understanding is that Spain has a fairly typical European social safety net, which I'm also assuming insulates from the worst effects of this sort of situation. Keeping the unemployed housed, fed, and their medical needs attended to would go a long way towards preventing social revolution. It's desperation and/or starvation that are most likely to trigger a revolution. If base needs are attended to people are more likely to adopt an attitude of resignation. How long that can be kept up with the drumbeat of austerity I don't know.

[Murazor]

My understanding is that Spain has a fairly typical European social safety net, which I'm also assuming insulates from the worst effects of this sort of situation. Keeping the unemployed housed, fed, and their medical needs attended to would go a long way towards preventing social revolution. It's desperation and/or starvation that are most likely to trigger a revolution. If base needs are attended to people are more likely to adopt an attitude of resignation. How long that can be kept up with the drumbeat of austerity I don't know.

Actually, the Spanish social safety net is relatively underdeveloped in comparison to the core European nations (including -or so I'm told- Italy) and to a good extent it has been the support of families (particularly pensioners to their children and grandchildren) that keeps the situation in manageable terms.

Which means that the reported wish of the government to take a chainsaw to pensions are not going to go over terribly well.

[Ekiqa]

I am surprised by that ... When you think about 60% youth unemployment, you think about revolution, I had sort of assumed. That is a very strong spirit. Or a very crushed one.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily true anymore. This isn't the result of cruel, exploitative government policy that could be solved by killing everyone in charge; the current mess came about because of market forces and will be dealt with by the same, or by manipulation of them. A revolution wouldn't accomplish anything.

This is the result of a cruel, exploitative policy that can be cured by killing everyone in charge. Get rid of the bankers and economists and neoliberals who caused this situation, and we'd be better off.

[Stark]

In what way?

[CaptHawkeye]

Man it never fails, as soon as real hardship begins to happen in a country everyone and their grandma thinks they've got a better idea about how to handle things.

If the idea is "violent revolution" then it's really not as better as you think.

[Stark]

But Hawks, if they kill all the capitalists it'll be super easy to get their economy back on track - RIGHT?

Just like 1934 - RIGHT?

[CaptHawkeye]

Think about how much fun we could all be having right now pointing out all the times political revolutions or overthrows of the government replaced tyrants with....even worse tyrants.

But hey that's pretty abstract. What isn't abstract is how narrow minded it is to look for all the ways the collapse of society would benefit YOU while ignoring how much it would hurt everyone else.

[hongi]

Got some Spanish friends here who got out before things got really bad. Neurobiologists are always in need here.

But from the way they describe it, there are loads of young people back home who are desperate to get the fuck out.

[Simon_Jester]

I am surprised by that ... When you think about 60% youth unemployment, you think about revolution, I had sort of assumed. That is a very strong spirit. Or a very crushed one.

LOL

It does seem to relate to social unrest in, say, the Arab countries. But they have less economic surplus and less of a welfare system to support the huge unemployed population.

This is the result of a cruel, exploitative policy that can be cured by killing everyone in charge. Get rid of the bankers and economists and neoliberals who caused this situation, and we'd be better off.

All right, who replaces them, what do they do, and how do you propose to improve net employment at socially productive work?

Man it never fails, as soon as real hardship begins to happen in a country everyone and their grandma thinks they've got a better idea about how to handle things.

If the idea is "violent revolution" then it's really not as better as you think.

Usually. Sometimes a revolution is if not the best thing that could happen now, the best thing that could happen in the long run- someone was probably going to have to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, or for that matter the Chinese Nationalists, eventually for China to modernize. But the revolutionaries are so often deeply fucked up that (in this I agree with you) it's daft to propose revolution as a solution to a nation's problems, unless those problems have persisted for decades.

[Stark]

You might want to appreciate the difference between 'revolutions' that reshuffle the deck of the elite oligarchs, and those that actually destroy the fabric of society and the new one ends up being created by whoever is stronger (the religious community, the rich and media, the military, etc)... Particularly in reference to Spain of all fucking places.

[LaCroix]

All right, who replaces them, what do they do, and how do you propose to improve net employment at socially productive work?

His solution probably includes the slaughter of about 27.2% of the current workforce, 58% of those males under 25...

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm just not sure what would help Spain at this point. They don't have the money to recapitalize their banking system without outside assistance, and borrowing it would be difficult - Spanish bond interest rates are already relatively high, and the government borrowing a ton of money to recapitalize them would send them even higher. In the mean-time, they've gotten stuck into the austerity-leading-to-negative-growth-requiring-more-austerity cycle that's been killing Greece recently.

They're not running a primary account deficit like Greece, though - meaning that if they just let their banking system collapse and consolidate along with a steep haircut on any foreign loans, they might be able to weather the pain of that out without getting into the cycle I mentioned above (assuming the above doesn't cause tax revenue to heavily decline). They could do a lot to ameliorate said pain if they could devalue their currency and run a more inflationary monetary policy, but that's not going to happen as long as Spain's part of the Eurozone.

[NoXion]

This is the result of a cruel, exploitative policy that can be cured by killing everyone in charge. Get rid of the bankers and economists and neoliberals who caused this situation, and we'd be better off.

Without being accompanied by fundamental changes in how the global economy operates, what you suggest would simply amount to a rotation in personnel. The demands of modern capital would ensure that within decades, any social-democratic policies would be rolled back once again and we'd all be back at square one.

Operating within the capitalist framework means a constant battle against the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and slashing the bargaining power of workers by dismantling the welfare state (making workers less willing/able to simply quit a shitty job) and keeping unemployment at a non-zero level (keeping wages depressed since if you don't like your job, there's always someone somewhere who's so desperate for a job that they're willing to do yours for less pay and fewer protections) are just two of the means that can and will be used by those with an interest in doing so.

The "neoliberals and bankers" are a symptom of the dysfunctional nature of modern capitalism, not the cause.

[cosmicalstorm]

I occasionally get the impression that the current debate about the crisis often ends up revolving around solutions that will not realistically speaking ever get implemented. As with the debate about environmental disaster and climate change. Stop saying what should be done and tell me what, realistically speaking, is the most likely end of the current trend.