[polskibus]

How come you don't observe massive emigration with such levels of unemployment? In Poland it is hard to find workers (observed for example by long waiting queues when asking around for builders, heat or water specialists, etc. In general construction and house refurbishment market is booming during covid. PL demographics projection is very bad , further worsening the forecasts on the market. Wages are growing but the workers shortage is too big to be fixed by this. Is it different in Spain? Or maybe the young are not skilled in the work that is in demand and would only accept office work?

[mkl95]

Spain had a massive property / construction bubble years ago. Wages grew substantially until 2008, when the industry crashed. It shattered the economy for many years until we started to slowly recover, in 2015 or so.

The last few years before COVID, wages were improving and things were looking a bit better overall. All of that seemed to vanish the moment lockdown started.

Regarding lack of skill, as a developer I notice two things:

1) Most young people seeking a technical position are hilariously unqualified despite having spent many years studying some engineering degree. School here has no connections with the real world and there is a lack of personal project culture.

2) Those who are qualified have to compete against hundreds of applicants for a position. Job scarcity is a serious problem for developers here, since it also means having no leverage to negotiate your working conditions.

[mytailorisrich]

There is quite a bit of emigration judging by the number of young Spanish people in the UK.

Another thing is that there is a significant "black economy" in Spain. I.e. the unemployment numbers do not exactly reflect the actual number of people who cannot find any work, which is less than the official figure.