Photo Gallery Spain's Problem Children
If you're looking to meet young people in Spain, the unemployment office is a good place to start. Some 40 percent of those under 25 have no job. Some are already talking of a lost generation.
Spain has begun efforts to reform its economy, but the government's austerity measures have not proven popular. On Tuesday, union members went out on strike and took to the streets.
Borja Sánchez left school when he was 17 years old to work as an elevator mechanic. Now, he can no longer find work. He has moved back home with his mother.
Sonsoles García, 28, lost her marketing job last year. She was planning on getting married and starting a family, but has had to put those plans on hold.
An unemployment office in Madrid. Spain has the second-highest unemployment rate in the European Union at almost 20 percent.
The government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is currently trying to put together a labor market reform which would make it easier for Spanish companies to hire and fire workers, but opposition is intense. Unions are threatening a general strike.
Late last month, Zapatero's government pushed a far-reaching austerity program through parliament -- by just a single vote. The plan calls for significant cuts to public sector wages.
The Labor Ministry in Madrid has proposed raising salaries for those under 30 and to improve training programs available to them. "Our youth have every reason to be critical," Maravillas Rojo, the secretary general of employment in the Labor Ministry, said last month. "We haven't communicated well about the changing labor market. We have to provide them with more opportunities."
Many young Spaniards are emigrating. Others are continnuing their studies. Here, a bar in Madrid with a sign reading, "forget the crisis -- drink more!"
