“Right now, good things only happen to young Spaniards if they go abroad. It’s a pity.” David Garcia Jurado who is moving to Canada to find work

MADRID, SPAIN—When David Garcia Jurado saw a “help wanted” sign in the window of a Barcelona pizzeria, he jumped at the opportunity. The trilingual 30-year-old with a master’s degree in financial management handed in his resume, hoping anxiously to hear back.

The call never came. Instead, the pizzeria job became another one of the more than 800 jobs Garcia Jurado has applied for in the past year. “It’s frustrating,” he says. “You start thinking you’re useless.”

From entry-level positions at banks to unpaid internships and service jobs, he’s applied to almost every posting he’s come across. Well-dressed and confident, Garcia Jurado’s face hardens as he explains how all of his efforts yielded just a handful of interviews. “Finding a job in Spain is an impossible mission,” he says, shaking his head.

Next month, Garcia Jurado will leave his girlfriend of six years behind and head to Canada. His flight will land in Ottawa, but he’s willing to go anywhere there is work.

“Right now, good things only happen to young Spaniards if they go abroad,” he says. “It’s a pity — for the country, for young people and for our parents, but it’s the only possible solution.”

With unemployment sitting at 26 per cent, Spain’s youth are leaving in droves. More than 280,000 people age 30 and under left the country last year, according to the National Statistics Institute, hoping to find better opportunities in countries such as Germany, Britain, Argentina and Mexico.

Those leaving are often fluent in multiple languages, well-educated and willing to work hard. The trend shows no sign of slowing; a recent European Commission study found 68 per cent of young Spaniards are considering moving abroad.

“Brutal,” is how Rafael Anibal sums up the statistics. When the 29-year-old journalist — university educated, bilingual and well-connected — saw everyone in his social network moving abroad, he started a blog to draw attention to some of the talent the country was losing. “When you keep in mind the amount that the Spanish state spent in educating all of us, it’s a tragedy,” he says. “An absolute tragedy.”

His blog features conversations with more than 60 Spaniards living around the world, personifying what Anibal — and many others — call Spain’s “lost generation.” There’s the engineer who works as a gardener in France and worries constantly about who will look after his aging parents; the architect who moved to England, where he works as a busboy, earning more than he ever could in Spain.

“All our lives we’ve been told to work hard and study. Now we’re a generation of young people well-trained and well-prepared, but there’s nothing for us in Spain,” says Anibal, who moved to Israel a few months ago, after depleting his savings looking for a job.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy this week announced a strategy to help ease youth unemployment.

He said $4.6 billion (U.S.) will be spent over four years on measures such as tax breaks for companies that hire young workers.

Until now, however, Spain’s politicians have all but ignored the need to create employment for youth, says Anibal.

Instead they’ve stood by as the nation’s best and brightest left, taking with them invaluable skills and talents

“We’re not leaving because we want to, we’re leaving because they’re throwing us out,” says Anibal, echoing a hashtag often used by young Spaniards going abroad.

Despite their reluctance to leave, these youth may be helping Spain by going abroad, argues Ceferi Soler, professor at the ESADE business school in Barcelona. The country’s history is dotted with waves of migrants who leave Spain, he says, but they always come back.

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“It’s home, it’s culture, it’s family,” he says. When this current crop of migrants returns, whether it’s in two years or 20, they’ll bring with them a wealth of international experience and languages that will propel the country forward.

The legion of young Spaniards working abroad also boosts international relations, he says. When Spain signed on to what is now the European Union, billions of dollars’ worth of loans flowed into the country to help it develop. “Now Spain is returning part of this investment with students who are ready to work abroad.”

But the long-term consequences of this brain drain ultimately hinge on whether or not these youth will come back, says Gayle Allard, an economist with the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid.

They have kept up their end of the bargain — they’re the most-educated and multilingual cohort Spain has ever had — but the generation before them has failed to create the jobs and policies to allow them to use these skills at home, she says.

“If you look at Spain, its big export sectors are agriculture, automotive and chemicals. Then you have all these first-generation university graduates with languages, looking for suitable jobs in a low- to middle-skilled economy. Those jobs are not there.”

The implications could be grave, says Allard. These skilled workers won’t be there when the country needs them most — to pay taxes, boost the economy and lead Spain out of recession.

As David Garcia Jurado describes his desperate job search of the past year, the word “opportunity” often comes up. It’s something he feels Spain — and its older generation of workers — failed to give him.

“I just want to have the opportunity to demonstrate my abilities, my skills, my hard work,” he says. “It’s the only thing I want. And Canada for me means opportunities.”

He hesitates at the idea of coming back to his country in a few years. “My feeling is that it’s over for me in Spain. Game over,” he says.

A few seconds later he leans back in his chair, adding softly, “And I have no more coins to spend.”

Ashifa Kassam is a freelance reporter based in Spain.

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