Take a look at a crowded street in any Spanish city and you will see two classes of workers. You won’t be able to distinguish them by their clothes, their skin colour or their schooling. But when they show up for work, receive their payslips at the end of the month or think about their future, they are very different. One group, let’s call them the fijos, feel more secure and more confident. With fixed contracts from their employers, they know they can’t be laid off easily - or cheaply - even in the current recession-bound economy. They don’t have to worry about their bosses renewing their contracts every month, every six months or every year. They may get training to advance their … [Read more...] about Time to end Spain’s labour market apartheid
recession
Running on Ẽmpty
A year after Spain’s centre-left government officially launched a massive stimulus package known as the Plan Ẽ, workers are still losing their jobs, public debt levels are scaring markets, and the economy is not likely to emerge from recession until 2011 at the earliest. Plan Ẽ, with its billions for public works projects, tax breaks and subsidies, was never intended to be more than a temporary bandage to get Spain through the worst of the fallout from the international financial crisis and the collapse of the domestic real estate and construction sector. But the wounds inflicted on Spain’s once booming economy have turned out to be slow to heal, and tearing the plaster off - as, for … [Read more...] about Running on Ẽmpty
Spain, Europe and the world: Zapatero’s moment
The six-month rotating presidency of the European Union passed on 1 January 2010 from Sweden to Spain. At the formal ceremony of transition in Madrid on 8 January, the Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero outlined a bold agenda: he reaffirmed that his country’s tenure would be one of action and initiative in which financial recovery and the boosting of the EU’s place in the world would be his foremost priorities. It sounds like the expression of confident leadership that a Europe buffeted by the economic crisis, the failure of the Copenhagen summit and its shrinking global role badly needs. But what are the prospects of Zapatero fulfilling his lofty aims? The centre-left … [Read more...] about Spain, Europe and the world: Zapatero’s moment