Spain's job market is shutting out young men

Employment is growing, but not for all young people

The headline that started the conversation was optimistic: the strong job growth of recent years has mainly benefited women and migrant workers. Read the other way around, that same figure reveals a hole. If most new jobs are going to those two groups, what is happening to the young Spanish-born man? The answer that emerges from the analysis is uncomfortable: he has been left out of the picture, and not for lack of a CV.

The thesis running through the issue is that Spain's labour market has specialised in specific niches —hospitality, care work, delivery, agriculture, some construction— that absorb labour under harsh conditions and low wages. That is where migrants and women come in. The young Spaniard, with different expectations and no urgency to sign just anything, is left in no man's land. It is not that he doesn't want to work: it is that the slot meant for him has narrowed.

The competition that drives wages down

The most frequently repeated argument is that of supply and demand. With a massive influx of workers willing to take whatever is available, competition for each job skyrockets and wages are pushed down. It is the classic reading: more hands available, less bargaining power. And the effect is especially noticeable at the entry level, where the young and inexperienced compete.

Some add another layer: recruitment. It is claimed that HR departments are mostly staffed by women and that this introduces a bias when filtering candidates. The claim is made without supporting data, but it circulates widely. In parallel, the rise of artificial intelligence is cited as a factor that could reverse the balance, by automating part of those filters and reducing the weight of human judgement —and its biases— in the screening process.

The ceiling at 40 and the abyss at 50

The conversation does not stop at people in their twenties. It extends to older workers: from 40 onwards companies already hesitate, and past 50 unemployment amounts to professional death. It is this age threshold that turns a setback into a sentence. Experience, which should be an asset, is read as a cost.

The result is a paradox: the country is ageing, needs workers, and yet pushes out of the market those who already have a trade. Training is offered as a way out —four-month courses in high-employability trades, with company internships— but it does not solve the underlying problem: if the job does not exist or is precarious, qualifications are not enough.

Loneliness as an economic variable

There is a thread running through the issue that rarely makes it into reports: the social dimension. The argument is that the lack of stable employment and a home of one's own leaves the young man without the traditional markers of adulthood —independence, a partner, a life plan— and that this feeds a distress that is not captured in the statistics. Male loneliness generates no public deficit, so it does not exist politically.

That void would partly explain the apparent calm despite the accumulated problems: housing, precariousness, isolation. The prediction being floated is that the tension will erupt when the economy cools, not before. Meanwhile, the escape valve some choose is emigration: learning languages and leaving. Voting with their feet, they call it.

What happens to young people who cannot find work?

They find a market offering low-skilled, low-paid jobs, or nothing. Competition with workers willing to accept worse conditions pushes them out at the entry level, and the experience they accumulate does not translate into better offers. The alternatives proposed are public-sector exams or vocational training, but neither guarantees a job if the productive economy does not create one.

The question that remains hanging is the usual one. If employment is growing and the country needs workers, why is there an entire generation that cannot find its place? Nobody has the complete answer. And while the search goes on, the clock keeps ticking.