Spain is the biggest exporter of aircraft parts in the world. The reason Spain is experiencing this high rate of unemployment is because companies are moving manufacturing jobs to other (third world) countries, as cheap labor is preferred. Spain increased manufacturing all through the 80s and 90s, it had the highest rate increase in the world at one point in the 90s.

It is this simple, hilarious how people are trying to blame it on party politics.

Spain is in a terrible situation... not as bad as Greece but very close to. That's also the consequence of an economy built on papersheets and houses. Poor manufacturers, poor innovation. People who talks about socialism in case of Spain simply don't know what the real situation of Europe.

Oh, my God. So many things to say and too little knowledge of English to tell them all.

Let's start with the fact that unemployment in Spain is and has always been strangely high. Even in the better years (2006-07), there were almost 1.8 million people unemployed (8%).

Then add that, unfortunately, there are many people working "off the books" as Kasz said. At work, there are many people working whitout contract and some of them also get the money from the unemployment. Sad, but that's what the owners want.

Third, there are many people that confuse being unemployed with having payed holidays. Yes, I've seen many cases at work.

And last, and it's not an excuse, please consider that unemployment is not calculated using the same rules everywhere. Let's take for instance some differences between Spain and Germany (and that's something an ex-politician said angry about some numbers used). In Germany, people looking for a job using a private agency are not included in the official numbers, and neither are the unemployed over 50, the younger than 20 that are looking for their first job or the unemployed that are doing some formation/training course.

The situation isn't good, but if there were so many people unemployed, how come the arrearage rate(¿?) (the index that tells how many credits/mortgage/bills are not payed) is under 8%? Where do people get the money from?

An unpaid mortgage over 3-4% is outrageous, so an 8% as some banks have means a huge problem for that bank. People get help from their families, I know a married couple who have their parents pay the mortgage, as they can't pay it, and it's not an uncommon thing. Lots of 60-70 years old people are losing their houses, as they put them as a guaranty of their sons/daughters mortgages.

PS: Spanair (Second largest airline, 4000 workers) closed today, without notice. We are really near our limit here.

I know that the situation is not good, and that many people are loosing their houses, but still the number is lower than what you would expect with an unemployment as big as ours.

Spanair was on life support even when things were ok, that's why the original owners sold it to some fools. And that's why the same day or 1 day after the gov. has said that it won't give them more money, they are closing.

That figure is truly unbelievable..I wonder how much higher can it go..?

Some analysts say 26% and over 6 million at the end of 2012.

The thing is, the solutions are not difficult, it's just the politicians don't want to let go of power. This seems to be the problem, world wide.

I came to the UK when I was 18 to learn English, then decided to get my degree here and then I stayed longer just because I like it better here. I've never actually worked in Spain, but I've been working full-time for 6 years in the UK, even while I was studying full-time. I'm leaving soon though, I'm going to live in Japan with my fiancée in June or so.

Although his gross generalziation is silly... it is worth noting that until recently unemployment had been a huge problem among pretty much all socilized nations... to the point of where such high unemployment was termed "Eurostasis".

The kind of unemployment Germany had in the 90's 2000's is the kind of unemployment that would of caused panic in the streets US wise.  Up until about 05.  German unemploynment was lucky to be below 9%.

As an example

http://www.newsneconomics.com/2010/07/crib-notes-for-g7-unemployment-rates.html

The one exception was Denmark, who while highly socialized had some of the most liberal (As in oldschool liberal IE Rightwing) labor policy laws in the world.  More so then the US even.

German Unemployment now tends to be low because there is no minium wage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/business/global/many-germans-scrambling-as-economic-miracle-rolls-past.html?pagewanted=all

Socialism really isn't the issue when it comes to unemployment policy wise.  It's labor market liberalization that matters