I hope this word just stops being used. As a young person from Spain that have studied and is working (and have been since I was 18), that term used in spanish people is terribly insulting.
There are a number of other subtle generalization in your comments to this story that I find moderately annoying, even if (or maybe because) some of your points are true.
I won't go into them in detail, it would be a very long conversation. Just let me say that you're seeing it from an entrepreneur POV, that I bet started your business in your country and then "exported" it to mine and others.
I have zero incentives to waste time swimming crosscurrent. If I find a decent job abroad, I couldn't care less about the country going where it's going anyway.
I can see you might find it annoying to hear because it might be different in your part of country. As someone said already; Spain is a BIG country with a lot of different cultures, I'm seeing only one up close.
And swimming crosscurrent; isn't packing your bags and moving crosscurrent? It's quite a big step. My point is that there is enough work IN Spain/Portugal if you want it, and although you won't get paid as much as in Germany, you don't live in Germany; prices are simply much lower and you do have all healthcare and such covered. To the extend, if you carefully check, that you can find an insurer and make terms which allow you to go to Germany (or wherever, even the US) if you have something bad. Of course you should get a job abroad if you like it, but only for money it, to me, doesn't make sense.
I'm 48, so my toes are not specially affected. I simply dislike when a bunch of journalists and pundits with vested interests blame the victims.
Older people have built a dysfunctional society and still the culprits seem to be the newcomers.
'pffff, that's no reason, I get free money, I don't need work and oh yeah, there is no work anyway'
And that, by the way, is exactly true. Why study if, after all the effort, graduates are paid less than unskilled workers? Why, if the important thing is who you know, not what you are capable of? The work thing is even worse, but I get angry only to think about it. Just think who their role models are.
I'm from a town not very far from there, in Cádiz. I had to come to Madrid 16 years ago, because there wasn't virtually any job for me there.
you don't live in Germany; prices are simply much lower
Sorry to be blunt, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Price difference may be significant WRT small villages near Ronda, but it's negligible compared to Madrid. And there is no decent work for a programmer in a village. And even in Madrid salaries are half what you earn in London.
Trust me that cost of living is not nearly double in London than in Madrid. You don't think it makes sense? Ask anyone anywhere if it makes sense for them to go elsewhere and get paid double.
You moved from Cadiz to Madrid for jobs? What do you do if I may be so blunt? Because, as I have been typing in this thread all day; there are tons of jobs in my field (programming) all around here. You just need to be creative in finding them.
There are so many people working 'from home' here as programmer and work is so easy to get it's scary. I don't think you realize how incredibly crap most programmers are and how unreliable they are. To hire a reliable western programmer is something which takes a bit of beating and losing money on crap programmers, but after that you'll have a job for life and you only notice the 'legacy stuff' with the first project (clients will panic every second they don't hear from you but that passes). But it won't be with a contract and such, it will be freelance. I imagine some people are not ok with that. On the other hand, you live only once and in this stint of a life, I would rather live under a bridge than move from Cadiz to Madrid. That's just me of course, but you might not have to depending on what your trade is?
I worked four years as a freelance some time ago. I wouldn't leave my day job to do it again, maybe would do it on the side. Anyway, I'd rather take a full-time job abroad though (there are flights from London or Dublin daily), and I wouldn't need to deal with customers' bureaucracy, internal fights, and late payments and requirements.
I think that you have many facts right and a passion for what you do. But there are many facts you ignore and tend to arrive to rushed conclusions and some contradictions. Don't take my word for it, just see how many things you find incomprehensible about people's behaviour. That's not a coincidence! :-)
The average age on Spain is 40.5. It's so easy to just say, fuck it, young people is lazy, so let's let the government pass this or these other bigoted rules, or even let a bigoted party rule, because it's the only way they will learn.
I was not saying you are not right (heck, we are in 28.4% of unemployment), I was pointing out that generalizations are incorrect and biased.
PS: I may be angry, because the government decided to increase taxes on self-employed people (with unreasonable numbers), making it harder for me to enjoy working and living here.
In the town I used to go to in the Alpujarra (Sierra Nevada) they 'lost' E2 million town hall money. Lost. And what's being done? Nothing. Someone is driving a souped up Veron drunk into a canyon while the children in the village might be losing their school. That makes me angry.