Hundreds of Spanish people are searching for jobs in London as the unemployment rate in Spain hit 20.6% in December.
According to the Eurostat statistics, unemployment rates had been hovering at 19.5% in 2010 but increased at the end of the year.
Clik here to view.
European unemployment March 2009 (source Wikipedia, royalty free)
The young are particularly badly affected and many of them have started job hunting across Europe.
Many Londoners say they are seeing more Spanish workers now.
Vivian, who works in a hostel in Dollis Hill, says long-term Spanish lodgers have occupied a third of the beds since December. “It is unusual. January is usually off-season and we see less travellers coming. We offer a low rate in January and this year we received a lot Spanish youngsters. Most of them are trying to get a job in London.”
A Spanish girl who wants to remain anonymous told me that she has been in London for more than a month and was looking for hospitality jobs.
‘Try my luck’
“The economic atmosphere in Spain is really bad, young people like me cannot even get a job,” she said.
“Once there is an opening, they want someone who has some experience. So I decided to follow the trend to try my luck in England. I don’t think I’ll lose anything even if I couldn’t find a job here — at least I learned to speak English.”
David Hewlett, a manager at a job centre confirmed that there is a boom in the numbers of Spanish job seekers using their service in London, but he declined to disclose the exact number of Spanish job hunters in London. He estimated that there are about 1,000 more who have joined the UK labour market since December.
But according to Mr. Hewlett’s accounts, the majority of these immigrant workers have been employed illegally through the black market economy.
According to the statistics published by Office for National Statistics, the UK unemployment rate has reached 7.9%, and for 16 to 24-year-olds it is 20.3%.
By Junyu Dong
