Is a shame the problem of unemployment in Spain, and I'm always wondering how it is possible that there is not a "revolution" with these soaring unemployment rates, close to 30% and higher in some areas. Well, I do not understand it. Economists say it is because of two reasons, first in Spain the family networks are very helpful to each other, in many cases the pensions of parents help the children spendings, etc.. Another reason is the underground economy, which some economists estimated at 20% of GDP, but in some sectors of the economy is probably more than 50%
There are some "structural" problems in the country that incredibly the government is not trying to change, now that it would be the right time.
These problems are: the labor productivity, working schedules (incompatible with other activities), too many unproductive working hours (for instance meals that spands to 2 hours), excessive college -level profiles that does not match the existing work, too many types of contracts, etc...
In Spain everyone wants to be a "gentlemen" and not prone to do jobs not very "serious" ( like plumbers, electricians, etc.) Of course I am talking about a portion of the population. "Low level" jobs are mostly taken by inmigrants.
Unemployment was already a serious problem before the crisis and has always been high. The government never tried seriously to solve it when they could.
The territorial distribution of the problem is very uneven. Unemployment is much more important in the South (Andalusia, Extremadura, Canary Islands), that in the north Basque country, Navarre. The range is from 15% to 35% (data from early 2013)
Data from INE (January 2013) http://www.ine.es/daco/daco42/daco4211/epa0412.pdf