The lost generation

The latest Eurostat data leaves us with a figure of desolation. A quarter of young Europeans are unemployed. The situation is even worse in the southern European countries where youth unemployment is above 50%.

That is why the north blames the south of being unfairly supporting its load. The populations of Scandinavia and the UK, countries that until recently welcomed and even demanded foreign labor, are beginning to see Southern Europeans as a plague and xenophobic acts, although very rare, have increased.

In the last British local elections, the conservative parties -especially the eurosceptic UKIP, but also the tories of Prime Minister David Cameron- have made a huge profit with the fear of European immigrant.

In September, Cameron’s government will implement more stringent controls for access to unemployment benefits and other assistance. In fact, the European migration control has become a central issue in British politics.

The truth is that the influx of young people from Southern Europe puts even more pressure on social systems that already bear a great burden. But the truth is also that an increased immigration is not linked to an increase in unemployment; that is a myth.

On the contrary, what really is a threat to Europe is the possibility of a lost generation. Worldwide there are about 300 million young people who are neither studying nor working -called NEET. Many of them do not even appear in the unemployment statistics because they are long-term unemployed or have never worked.

It is a global phenomenon. So far, Southeast Asia and the Middle East have led the ranking of number of NEETs. In fact, this was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the Arab Spring. But Europe is moving closer to these levels.

Greece tops the list with 64% of unemployed youth, followed by Spain with 55%. In countries such as Ireland, over 300,000 people have emigrated in the last four years, of which 40% were under 25 years. For a country with a population of about six million, that means that one in every four families has a migrant member.

The causes of this are complex. Much has been made of the lack of coordination between what the labor market demands and what universities produce. Also the digital divide has been on the table as a possible cause.

Photo: Daily Telegraph

But as this article explains, if there are not enough people to fill certain jobs, those jobs’ salaries should have increased. It is something that would be a logical consequence of the law of supply and demand.

However, instead of increased salaries, we got inflation, rise of prices and freeze of wages. Instead of becoming richer, the gap between poor and rich is widening and mostly against the poor.

Another more possible cause is the lack of foresight by the governments of Southern Europe. In countries where investment in science and R & D is high and the government promotes an entrepreneur mentality, such as Germany, Austria and the UK, the impact of unemployment has been felt but not as drastically as in Spain or Greece.

Meanwhile, the southern European countries enjoyed no safety net in case the construction and tourism industries failed. After falling these two sectors have dragged with them other more complex industries.

That is why today in Berlin we can find queuing a waiter of the Greek islands, a bricklayer from Spain and an Italian engineer, all together. An economy, an education system and a mentality based on the first two dragged with them the third in their fall.