Europe is trying to create new jobs through the flexibility of the labour market but the phenomenon of unemployment continues to increase and to affect the weaker sections of society – especially immigrants, young people and women. Caritas-Madrid, the “Fraternities of Work” and Justice and Peace have organized a campaign aimed at raising awareness about the phenomenon and providing a programme of support for the unemployed. We discussed it with Rosalía Portela , the programme’s coordinator. How did the initiative of a “campaign against unemployment” arise? “We realized that unemployment and marginalization are often linked: the difficulty of finding a job is in fact greater for the weaker sections of the community: former drug addicts, former prostitutes, immigrants… Of the some 9,000 people who participate in the programme, 84% are immigrants, 24% young people below the age of 25 with little or no work experience, 65% are women and 16% over the age of 45. They are people who have seen a door slammed in their face without being able to open another one. Now they have a need for an opportunity to demonstrate they are capable of working”. How do you help them? “We’ve set up 31 career guidance services. We offer in the first place a willing ear to listen to their problems: it’s important to start out from respect for the person because very often they come to us demotivated and with a total loss of self-esteem. We try to get to know the person, his/her situation, shortcomings and potential. Then a strategy is formulated to help them get back into the world of work. Sometimes financial support is also provided, in those cases in which unemployment has left someone reduced to poverty”. Apart from career guidance how do you do help with training? “We organize crash courses in which a trade or profession is taught: carers for old people and children, waiters, gardeners, domestic staff… It’s a service we provide especially for immigrants because so many of them arrive without any academic qualifications. But we’ve also ascertained how important it is to teach correct habits and attitudes on the workplace. So we’ve established two centres where immigrants can work with us for a maximum of two years and learn responsibility, discipline, capacity for cooperation and group work, as well as workers’ rights and duties”. What’s the situation of the labour market in Spain today ? “The number of the unemployed rises and falls, but we mustn’t stop at the figures, because behind them there are real human people and unresolved problems. There’s a good deal of precariousness on the workplace, with short-term contracts that cannot give future security to the young. Then there’s the problem of clandestine immigration which generates a black-market economy and in some cases situations of semi-slavery. That happens very often in domestic service, where wages are very low and hours of work excessive… We have also noted that there is a ‘feminization’ of unemployment: 75 % of the unemployed are women. In spite of the fact that equal opportunities legislation safeguards their rights, in practice employers are reluctant to hiring women”.
