Spain and Portugal are countries in crisis, having been hit harder by the 2008 recession than perhaps any country, except Greece. Under former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Salazar and former Spanish general and dictator Francisco Franco, both countries failed to build lasting industry and infrastructure; when the housing bubble burst, they had very little to fall back on. The youth unemployment numbers in both countries are staggering. Spain has around 43 percent of its young people unemployed, and in Portugal the situation is very similar, with 28 percent of its youth looking for work. In both cities and the countryside, there are abandoned warehouses and buildings, and facades of old homes whose beauty can still just barely be seen through their dilapidated states. With Spain’s government in shambles, and Portugal still languishing under austerity measures, the question has to be asked whether there is any relief on the horizon for the Portuguese and Spanish people.
The most interesting people to talk to about the economic situation in the Iberian Peninsula are college students. The general sentiment amongst the youth here is that they are a lost generation; a college degree does not even come close to guaranteeing you employment in either country anymore. In Porto, Portugal, my tour guide was 27 years old, with a degree in sustainable aquaponics. Since Portugal’s main exports are wine and fish, I expected his degree would have allowed him to pursue a promising career, but this was not the case. He told us there were no opportunities in the country whatsoever, and that the unemployment rate, as high as it is, actually does not reveal the full extent of the problem, since a large majority of recent college graduates, although employed, are unable to find work in their fields of study. In Spain, I met two students who had recently completed doctorates in biodiversity, and even with that level of education, there were simply no jobs available to them.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, universities in Spain and Portugal are quite accessible. As admirable as that is, the system is a double-edged sword, because while many citizens have a high level of education, there is also an oversaturation in the job market of college-educated students. Especially in Spain, the lack of available jobs is directly linked to the lack of industry. There is almost no manufacturing in Spain, and since the country’s credit rating was downgraded in 2012, entrepreneurship has become even more difficult. In both Spain and Portugal in the mid-2000s, construction companies employed thousands of workers, but the implosion of the construction market left behind ghost towns, rampant debt, and no more work.
In Salamanca, I find the most interesting students to talk to about the crisis are those in the School of Translation at the University of Salamanca. Most of the students in this major, or facultad as the Spanish call it, believe their best chances of finding employment lie elsewhere. Many of them speak up to four languages, and their hope is that somewhere, whether in France, Germany, the United States, or another country, there are greener pastures. This exodus of students is not just in Salamanca, but everywhere, across both Spain and Portugal. Luis, the Portuguese tour guide I mentioned earlier, was moving to the Netherlands, where he had been offered a trial period in a fish hatchery. The two doctoral students were considering moving to America, as they felt their options in Spain were almost nothing. My friends in the translation school are vying for grants to study further in America, and hopefully secure their futures in the United States. Unfortunately, with so many young, well-educated people leaving Spain and Portugal, there may be dire consequences in the future.
However there are some signs that things may be starting to improve. Strangely enough, in the time that Spain has been without a government, the economy has actually shown promising growth. In Portugal, the tourism industry is booming; Porto has been selected as the best destination in Europe twice in the past four years. But while these hint that improvements may lie in the future, citizens worry about the present. The cultures of Spain and Portugal are vibrant, but there is no denying that the people are suffering. And if there is no improvement soon, this generation may truly be lost for good.
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