Young people in Spain lag behind in employment recovery, with more than 460,000 out of work

Unemployment among young people hit record highs in the following years, to the point where it tripled and approached 57%. In other words, in 2013, more than half of young Spaniards who wanted to work were unemployed.

More than a decade later, that rate has reduced by more than half, but this group remains at a disadvantage compared to others, facing the greatest difficulties in finding work. More than 460,000 are currently unemployed, according to data from the latest EPA survey.

The Ministry of Labour has decided to take action. It has opened a round-table discussion with partners to develop policies that will help improve access to employment for young people and for the long-term unemployed.

The proposal put forward to employers' organisations and trade unions aims to ensure that at least 200,000 people under the age of 25 find their first job by 2028 through public initiatives and personalised, tailored pathways.

However, Minister Yolanda Díaz's objective comes too late, at the end of the parliamentary term and at a time when social dialogue is strained by the failure to implement the commitments between the government and the trade unions. With an election just around the corner, it now seems almost impossible to reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, only three in ten young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are in employment, although in many cases this is because their training period is taking longer. Although this figure has improved considerably compared with 2014, when employment hit rock bottom at just 17%, it remains a long way from pre-2008 crisis levels, when it comfortably exceeded 40%.

At that time, the construction sector became the main magnet for young workers, but that came to an abrupt end with the bursting of the property bubble.

Before 2008, more than half of those under 25 were in the labour force, but with the onset of the crisis, this figure plummeted and has not recovered since. It currently stands at 39%, 12% lower than before.

When we look beyond Spain's borders, the picture pales in comparison with the European average. The employment gap with the rest of Europe stands at almost 8%, "because Eurostat puts the employment rate for this age group in Spain at 26.6%".

The difference is much greater when compared with northern economies, such as Germany (50%) or the Netherlands (75.9%) and remains below the figures for Portugal (27.4%) and France (33.9%).

Spain has gone from being the country with the highest unemployment rate to ranking fourth among the largest European economies, behind Finland, Sweden and Estonia, with a rate of 22.9 % in July. Spain's labour force participation rate is no better and remains 6% below the European average.

While countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and France emerged stronger from the economic crisis and, almost 20 years on, have exceeded the labour force participation rates they had at that time, Spain and Portugal have not managed to do so.

Furthermore, the figures get worse as the age group gets younger. Among those under 20, the employment rate falls to 8.8%, less than half the level before the economic crisis, due to people leaving education later. The unemployment rate soars to 37%, still a far cry from pre-2008 figures, while the labour force participation rate is half, standing at 14.05%.

In practice, this means that for the youngest people, entering the world of work inevitably involves registering as jobseekers rather than securing a job.

Yolanda Díaz's ministry has set out to develop specific measures aimed at improving youth employment rates. In her proposal, the objective is for all young people registered with the public employment services to have received a job offer, training or work placement within a maximum of four months of registering.

Its first-job scheme aims to involve 80% of large local councils (towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants), alongside public services. The jobs secured by young people may be in either the private or public sector and the aim is for 75% of these first contracts to be full-time and for 60% to have an initial duration of at least 12 months.

The document also proposes additional measures to encourage young people to seek employment outside their regions and offers financial assistance towards accommodation and living costs to fill vacancies listed in the catalogue of hard-to-fill roles.

Although the trade unions are awaiting the outcome of these negotiations with bated breath, the initial public reactions have not been entirely positive. The CC OO's secretary for training and employment, Loli García, rejected the ministry's assessment that the target group should be limited to young people aged 24 and under and called for it to be extended to 30.

This stance is similar to that of the UGT's general deputy president, Lola Navarro, who called for "getting active employment policies right" and for results to be assessed beyond the amount of funding spent. Furthermore, the organisations called for clarification of the role of public-private partnerships, which should be "complementary" to public employment services and not consist solely of allocating public funds to private organisations to run the programmes.

Another round of negotiations is therefore set to begin and it will be difficult to reach an agreement given the imminent new elections. Furthermore, an agreement with the CCOO and UGT unions appears unlikely due to their continued refusal to reach new agreements until the new timekeeping system and regulations preventing salary bonuses from absorbing minimum wage increases are implemented.

The situation with the CEOE (Spanish confederation of employers' organisations) is not much better and the poor relationship between the employers' association and the Ministry of Labor makes it difficult to foresee an agreement that includes businesses.

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