Economic blues

The other night while I was walking home, I noticed that a fast-food outlet near our offices had been closed down by the police for alleged staff exploitation, a number of businesses in a relatively small area were closing down and there are now beggars at most city centre traffic lights. It got me thinking that perhaps the economic miracle which the government claims to have performed was not such a miracle after all. The Spanish economy is still in deep trouble. Twenty per cent of the working population is without a job, and unions claim that most of the new jobs which have been created are lowly paid and with short-term contracts. This would probably explain the growth in political parties such as Podemos which gained millions of votes in Sunday’s general election. There is a sizeable section of the Spanish population who are living below the poverty line. The Partido Popular, in office for four years until Sunday, had based their election campaign on their so-called economic miracle. But many in Spain doubt that the economy has recovered because the recovery hasn’t reached them yet. The new Spanish government, which will probably be a coalition of all shapes and sizes, has much work to do. One of its first tasks has to be unemployment. A proper jobs strategy is needed. Also, the government needs to ensure that the holiday industry is not just about the summer so that long-term proper jobs can be created.