I don't see that Spain is at the worst of it. The majority of the people I talk to about this, both family, friends, and people on the street (seriously, I ask cashiers, waiters, friends of friends) don't seem to get it it yet.
Most of the debt issues are just coming to light, small town/village governments are still doing the same old thing, and the "people in power" are still getting away with it.
Nothing is going to make this go away, and this government, with their watered down transparency plans and regional examples (think Madrid and Comm. Venlenciana) isn't going to be capable to doing what it takes. There's just too much mud on their hands.
I will say when my wife and I spent some time on Ibiza and Mallorca that the attitude of the workers there seemed a little different, perhaps because these places are so heavily sold into servicing northern Europeans. On the mainland the amount of people I have seen collecting paro and working, or collecting power and rejecting work is horrible.
Unfortunately all this is true, but something is finally changing (although slowly). My wife used to see as a doctor lots of people that where feigning illness just to get the medical dismiss and receive a pay without working. They even came to the hospital with their lawyers in order to intimidate the doctors or worst physical threats and yelling.
Now all this has almost disappeared, not completely but is much better. People is realizing that the Belle Epoque where everybody had right to receive money for nothing is gone.
Okay, so they aren't gaming the system in that manner, and in that there is a ray of hope.
But it could also be that they are out of work and cannot play that game any more, instead are either 1. properly (or willfully) unemployed and on Paro or 2. they are working under the table and collecting Paro or 3. they are simply working under the table or 4. they are unemployed and have zero income...
Well there is still people that is not working and just wants to game the system to obtain more money, but much less than before.
At the higher point people was rejecting job offers because they had unemployment and didn´t want to lose it. It has been pretty standard(I have some friends and family who have been doing exactly this) to have a temporal contract in any job (6 months or 1 year) and when it finished you went to receive your unemployment pay till you finish it, 6 months or so without looking for a job, just enjoying. Then, and only then you looked for another job!. You can not repeat more than 3 periods of 6 months, because the company will have to transform your contract to a fixed one. So it does´t really matter how good you are, you are going to be fired no matter what after a year and a half.
Work contracts here are a bad joke (they have changed the law, but I don´t think it will really change that much as they only made firing cheaper, hiring is still very expensive). Companies are forced to hire people with this horrible contracts that don´t allow you to get a fixed job, because it is very difficult to be flexible with fixed employees (autopun no intended). Workers become more expensive as time passes, no matter how good or bad the worker is. Also firing somebody when he has been a lot of time in the company was very expensive (40 days for year worked, now reduced to 20)
Unions are defending the rights of the fixed employees but almost no one can get one of those contracts, so they are not defending the workers that really need to be defended, but the unions status quo. Also the companies have gamed the system and played with the contract conditions of hard working people, discouraging hard work (good workers are not payed more here, in general they prefer by far a cheap and unexperienced worker than a more experienced and productive one that happens to be more expensive).
We have a system in which from school hard working people were considered dumb, and made jokes of them. You pass from one course to the next even if you fail. Why are you going to study that hard if it is possible to earn more working in construction, and receiving the unemployment help?. The same happens in the companies (not all of them of course, but it is really common), why are you going to work hard if they are going to fire you anyway when the year and a half expires no matter how good you are.
That is why a lot of young people can´t afford to go living alone, of course is a cultural problem (not moving far from your town to get a job, requesting the best job conditions even if you are not the best worker nor have experience, etc..), but working and social conditions for young people have not been very encouraging to do much differently, in fact the opposite has been true.
The excess of cheap money around made people to see working as time lost. Much better go gambling (invest) in your flat, after all you were supposed to be able to sell it for double in 3 or 4 years.
You can also add the cultural loath to the EMPRESARIO (business owner). Here if your business is making money, you´ll be suspicious of stealing from your costumers or/and your employees (maybe is a catholic sin?, or simply good ol´ envy). People rather be a civil servant or be unemployed than be an employee and much less try your own business . Now it seems that people is changing the way they look at entrepreneurship, mostly due to the internet and Facebook, and of course necessity.
All this doesn´t mean that there is no really hard working people in Spain, there is, but in general it wasn´t seen as something to be proud of. More like kind of stupid (this depends heavily on your social extraction, lower levels where the ones that fell more deeply in this trap).
Maybe this deep crisis will have the effect of reseting all this broken system, and a change to a more rational one. (just maybe)
I have a few neighbors who have the entrepreneurial bug and have started small businesses during this downturn. One fellow said he would be happy to be making enough to employ his brother in-law and take home 1300 for himself.
Spanish modesty and enjoying the good life, while creating a proper small business and employing one or two people. Ole, here's to more people like that!
Most of the debt issues are just coming to light, small town/village governments are still doing the same old thing, and the "people in power" are still getting away with it.
Nothing is going to make this go away, and this government, with their watered down transparency plans and regional examples (think Madrid and Comm. Venlenciana) isn't going to be capable to doing what it takes. There's just too much mud on their hands.
I will say when my wife and I spent some time on Ibiza and Mallorca that the attitude of the workers there seemed a little different, perhaps because these places are so heavily sold into servicing northern Europeans. On the mainland the amount of people I have seen collecting paro and working, or collecting power and rejecting work is horrible.