Across Europe, there's a generation with its future on hold
Young people in Greece,
Ireland and Spain talk about how the economic crisis is affecting them
Europe's
lost generation costs €153bn a year
Greek students protest in Athens in front of the Greek parliament. Youth
unemployment is at 55.4%, higher than in any other European country.
Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/EPA
Glykeria Papadopoulou is young
and ambitious. She dreams of becoming a teacher of modern Greek literature. In
the four years since she graduated with a degree in the field, she has sent out
her CV "hundreds of times", placed adverts in print and online media,
and even stickers on lampposts outside schools. But youth unemployment in Greece is at 55.4%,
higher than any other EU country.
"It is quite clear that my generation has lost
out," she says. "The previous generation didn't think so much about
the future. They grew up dreaming of having work, money, a home and family and
educating their children and here we are educated and with a home but with no
work or money."
She recently signed up to a six-month university
course to teach children with learning disabilities, a programme her retired
father underwrote to improve his daughter's prospects.
"At least I have a family who looks after me and
I don't have to worry about paying house-rent or any bills," she adds.
"But being supported by your parents at such an age is also bad for your
self-confidence and self-esteem. And there is no way you can have dreams or
make plans of having a family or your own."
More women than men account
for the growing number of young
peoplewho are overeducated and
underemployed in Greece. Lack of state support, inevitably, has come also to
exacerbate their frustration. Papadopoulou could move abroad – the brain drain
has assumed alarming proportions since the eruption of Europe's debt crisis in Athens three years ago – but she doesn't want to.
She added: "I don't want to abandon my country
because this is where I have my friends, family and home and in the present
climate I'm not convinced it would be easier abroad.
"If Greece is to get out
of this crisis, the mentality has to change and that might need many more
years, perhaps another generation, for that to happen." Helena Smith
Ryan Greene is caught in a
jobless limbo. The 20-year-old Dubliner has a minimal qualification in Ireland's version of A-levels, so is not a priority for training projects. But he
hasn't enough points from his leaving certificate to get into a third-level
college.
His Arsenal shirt, tracksuit bottoms and trainers
point to his ambition – to become a fitness trainer or teach physical
education. "I'm caught in the middle," he said at the job centre in
Ballymun, north Dublin, a high-rise district ravaged by heroin addiction and
the presence of armed crime gangs. "I've been unemployed for two years and
I come here every single day looking for work, filling in forms, sending around
CVs."
Almost 15% of the Irish workforce is out of work with
only a quarter of people aged 15-24 holding down a job. Last year 50,000,
mainly young Irish citizens, emigrated.
Greene says that while some of his friends have gone
to work in mining in Australia he will tough it out at home. "I live with
my mum and dad, and I'm lucky I've got a large caring family with loads of
brothers and sisters. I couldn't imagine emigrating to somewhere so far
away."
The other option that holds
out the prospect of money, a car and status for many of his generation is to
become a "soldier" in one of the proliferating crime gangs across
Dublin. "When I was younger I hung around with a crowd who were into the
gangs and I could have easily got roped in. I'm not interested in that. All I
want to do is get a job, to train and help others to get fit." Henry McDonald
Alvaro Couceiro dreams of going home to his
grandparents' flat in Alcala de Henares, a town near Madrid, and dropping money
on the kitchen table. "It would be a way of thanking them for keeping me
going," the 19-year-old said. Couceiro left school after the equivalent of
GCSEs. He did a training course to be a chef. "I really enjoyed it,"
he said. "That is what I want to do."
But youth unemployment in Spain is over 50%, and
a quarter of all Spaniards are unemployed. And while many are heading back to
school, a quarter of Spaniards aged 18-29 neither work nor study.
A temping agency gave him occasional work as a waiter,
paid by the hour.
"Though I always knew when I had to start, they
never said when I would finish," he said. "One day I went to a hotel
at 4pm, worked until 5am and started again at 6am."
Now even temporary work has dried up as Spain's
economy collapses into double-dip recession. So Couceiro lives with his
grandparents, who feed him and give him a weekly allowance; Spain's welfare
state is not generous. his sporadic work history means he has no right to the
dole or any other state support. His family is expected to look after him.
"The training courses at the employment office
are full and, anyway, they are being cut back - so I have little chance of
getting on to one," he says. "I'd do anything to work. If someone
called me to clean their house, I'd be there immediately."
Like many young Spaniards, he is thinking of
emigrating. None of his friends work. "The lucky ones are studying, the
others are like me," he said. "Some say they don't care, but they are
lying. Everyone needs money." He is grateful to his grandparents.
"They pretend to have spare pension money to give
me, but they only just get to the end of the month," he said. "One
day I'll pay them back. For that, I need a job." Giles Tremlett
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