From Precariousness to Massive Unemployment: Young
Workers in Spain.
Carlos J. Fernández Rodríguez
(Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Paper for the EWERC seminar series. Manchester Business School, Thursday 19th
April 2012.
Aim of this paper: a reflection on a national case
•Theoretical framework is inspired on regulation theory and its
debate on Fordism / Post-Fordism
•It provides a description of the Spanish situation regarding
precarious labour and young people, focusing on the labour
market figures and its impact on young people’s life projects.
•It discusses the way the road to precariousness has been
outlined in Spain since the death of the dictatorship (1975) until
the current economic crisis, highlighting the importance of
labour market reforms.
•It pays attention to the perception of the young Spaniards
about themselves focusing on their discourses.
Youth labour market: a difficult scenario
•Spanish labour market has suffered historically a very high
unemployment rates. Currently that rate has reached an
astonishing 22.85%.
•Labour market has also suffered of a strong segmentation since
the eighties. Fixed-term contracts have represented for many
years a 1/3 of the total existing contracts (today ¼). They are
widely used in sectors such as construction and hotel industry, for
many years pillars of the Spanish economy.
•Result: a “Culture of temporariness” in Spanish employers; high
figures in job insecurity surveys.
Youth labour market: a difficult scenario (II)
The Spanish labour market evolution:
Youth labour market: a difficult scenario (III)
Numbers have been generally much poorer when we talk about
young people (almost 50% unemployed!!):
Table 1: Unemployment rate: from the peak to the deep valley (2007-2011)
Unemployment rate (%)
2011IV
2007II
Both sexes
Total
Young people under 25
Men
Total
Young people under 25
Women
Total
Young people under 25
22.85
48.56
7.95
18.19
22.46
50.56
6.1
15.2
23.32
46.31
10.49
22.04
Source: Encuesta de Población Activa (EPA), National Institute of Statistics (INE) data (2012).
Youth labour market: a difficult scenario (III)
While the numbers have dropped down with the crisis, there has
traditionally been a very high number of young people hired with
fixed-term contracts (more than 50% by 2006). With the current
economic crisis, the rate among these young workers has
decreased severely as they have become unemployed.
Half of the people between 16 and 34 years old have required
more than a whole year to find a job after graduating (no matter
the educational level achieved).
The spread of low quality jobs has helped to delay the personal
projects and transitions to adulthood of a whole generation of
Spaniards (independence, raising new families, etc.)
Staying with papá and mamá… until I’m 30
A larger number of thirty-something people are still dependent in
terms of economy and residence on their parents: in 2005 20% of
people over 30 were still living with them.
While later reports claim that the numbers had improved by 2008,
it is likely that the crisis may have dropped those numbers down
again. Some scholars have also talked about “boomerang kids”.
While in Southern Europe patterns of independence differ greatly
from northern European countries, surveys show that the reasons
behind delayed independence are mostly economic (house prices,
precarious jobs).
Staying with papá and mamá… until I’m 30 (II)
•Some authors have criticized the lack of a coherent public policy
regarding young people, linked to the historical underdevelopment
of the Spanish Welfare State.
•Important social consequences: Spain has one of the lowest
fertility rates of the world. It has been below a rate of 1.5 since
1987 with few signs of recovery in spite of immigrant mothers.
•The lack of confidence in the future, a more hedonist culture and
complaints related to the impossibility to achieve a balance
between working life and parenthood seem to influence the choices
of Spanish young people about raising a family.
Labour deregulation and the road to precariousness (I)
Point of departure: dismantlement of Franco’s paternalistic labour
market.
Transition to democracy: high inflation and growing unemployment.
Measures since 1977 promoted new kinds of contracts addressed to
young people.
1984, 1994: Important labour market reforms that introduced
different types of fixed-term contracts. They ended up being a third
of the existing contracts spreading precariousness among different
groups (particularly young people).
Labour deregulation and the road to precariousness (II)
1997, 2006: labour market reforms were less agressive but did not
succeed in lowering the rate of temporary contracts.
2010, 2011, 2012: last labour market reforms has diminished the
dismissal costs but they have not helped to improve unemployment
figures.
In sum, these reforms have mainly reinforced fixed-term contracts,
largely used by companies (to the point of being abusive) as well as
other types such as apprenticeship, formative and “practices”
contracts, all of them designed to fight against unemployment
among young people. Therefore access to the labour market has
been eased by worsening labour conditions.
Pessimistic discourses (I)
The persistence of precariousness along all these years has affected
not only the educational strategies of Spanish young people but also
their expectations.
The proliferation of mileurism (young graduates whose salary is
around 1000 €/ month) brought discontent to young people as they
witness how their diplomas are not valued by the labour market in
the way they expected. Now they do not even reach those figures.
Therefore discourses (taking from nine focus groups) show that
there is a clear pessimism in the way they look at the future.
Pessimistic discourses (II)
“almost everyone I know does not have a permanent contract, there is no
stability so you can be fired at any time”.
“They do not listen to you and the less they hear you the more they like
you. The more you talk the worse they consider you. […]. They are not
interested in what you say”.
“Too many hours. Once there were two weeks in which I had to be at the
job place from 6 am to 9 pm”.
“I did not dare but another guy tried to start one trade union and soon
things were messed up. He was suddenly fired without any reason but you
know what the problem was about… They want to have everything under
control and they do not want that kind of people…”
Pessimistic discourses (III)
“you can’t throw a stick without hitting 500 graduates”
“there are guys who have enrolled vocational training and have gained
more experience so now they earn three times more than me even if they
have never step in a University classroom”
“I know lots of people who have graduated in different Faculties and all of
them are unemployed”
“We all have finally felt like if we have been cheated, you know? It seems
like if I have been studying for nothing”
Pessimistic discourses (IV)
Daily practices, management by walking around and professional
experience are considered to be highly positive whereas degrees
and theoretical knowledge are despised in a clearly anti-intellectual
stance. Titulitis forces young people to get overqualified and this
does not mean that they become better workers.
Frustration is also fuelled by the growing knowledge about
European social policies and a feeling that they are less skilled than
Northern Europeans in terms of labour and even life projects.
Precariousness seems to create an enormous frustration and
resentment among young people, leading to individualization
straegies rathen than to collective responses (until May 2011).
Conclusion
•Labour market reforms have pushed a managerial philosophy in
which human resources are more likely to be considered costs
rather than assets and thus introducing an enormous uncertainty
among young people, the main group affected by these flexible
policies.
•Precarious labour has become the only employability norm and
the high unemployment figures show a difficult scenario for young
people: the alternatives seem to be for many to remain
unemployed or work in precarious conditions. Recently there has
been a rise in activism with lots of protests (Movimiento 15-M)
•Prospects for the future seem to be rather gloomy for this
generation of Spaniards.
THE END
Thank you very much!