Spain’s unemployment rate has been significantly higher than the rest of the EU for decades. Recently it has dropped down to 11-12% but it has also had long stints of being 20%+ over the past two decades. Spain seems like it has a great geographical position, stable government, educated population with good social cohesion, so why is the unemployment rate so eye poppingly high?
In: Economics
Spain is a country that committed economic suicide by isolation since it’s civil war. Once it came out of its dictatorships, it choose short term profit over long term.
This can be seen on how Spain Focused it’s economy in what ended up being a big bubble in 2008.
As well it’s weather and natural beauty allowed the country to make a lot of easy money off food and tourism. Lately it has become the most touristy country in the planet. This means that employment is highly seasonal and highly unregular, meaning lots of “under the table” payments, that give a false sense of unemployment.
In other words, Spain has invested in a lot of industries that provide disminishing returns and make the country compete with poorer and poorer countries
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