MADRID – Doing nothing at all sounds good in itself. Yet this situation applies to one in five Hispanic young people. More than 20% of Spaniards between the ages of 20 and 34 have no job or study. With this percentage, Spain is in third place among EU countries.
The share of study and unemployed people between the ages of 20 and 34 was 18.7% in 2019 and has increased to 22.3% in 2020. This percentage of young people not working or studying is only surpassed by Italy (29.4%) and Greece (25.9%). The pandemic has increased this percentage, according to Eurostat, the organisation that deals with statistics within the EU.
5% of Hispanic young people consciously prefer not to work
In total, 17.3% would like to work or study. However, the remaining 5% indicate they would rather not work or study at all. Furthermore, there is virtually no gender difference among these Spanish youngsters without a job or study. Although this changes over the age of 25. In this group, more women are at home than men. This is especially the case when women become mothers for the first time.
The high percentage within this target group has a lot to do with the difficult situation on the labour market in Spain, especially for young people. Unemployment among Spaniards under the age of 25 was 36.9% in May.
Big contrast between Northern and Southern Europe
Eurostat reports that the differences between Northern and Southern European countries are considerable. The Netherlands, for example, has one of the lowest percentages of young people without a job and study. Only 8.2% of Dutch residents between the ages of 20 and 34 have no job or are not studying.
Spain peaks during last economic crisis
Eurostat has been keeping these figures up to date since 2000. During the last economic crisis, this percentage peaked at 27.4% in 2014. Since that year, the proportion of unemployed and non-studying young people has fallen quite sharply. However, the corona pandemic threw a spanner in the works, causing this percentage to rise again significantly.
