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Unemployment in Spain: Its Causes and the Policy Response
Author(s) -
Fina Lluís
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9914.1987.tb00112.x
Subject(s) - unemployment , section (typography) , economics , full employment , job loss , supply side , labour economics , minor (academic) , structural unemployment , macroeconomics , political science , business , law , advertising
One of the basic premises of this paper is that the loss of jobs in Spain is basically the reverse side of the specific characteristics of Spanish economic growth in the second half of the Franco years. The first section is dedicated to a general description of this period, and the second describes the loss of jobs which began in the mid‐Seventies, identifying the main sectors of the economy and examining the many reasons which explain the evolution of employment in each of them. The two following sections discuss the factors which explain the job loss: the third examines the permanent or 'structural’factors which may have had a negative effect on employment and discusses the extent to which they should be considered as given by the new situation and whether they can or should be altered while the fourth section examines the other, temporary factors, which have also had a negative effect on employment. The fifth section examines some of the supply side factors. Although these factors have had a relatively minor influence on unemployment, they cannot be overlooked when attempting to get a complete picture of the situation and particularly of the prospects of the Spanish labour market. The sixth and last section discusses how Spain's economic policy is responding to the problems examined in the earlier sections of this paper. Not every aspect of the economic policy can be examined in detail, and so the analysis is limited to a mention of the major objectives of the macroeconomic policy and then proceeds to examine the principal labour market policies, and those which are specifically aimed at solving the main problems identified earlier in the paper. Finally, a concluding section reviews and summarizes the main arguments and points out some policy implications.