The ongoing economic crisis has pummelled Spain. Small businesses feel abandoned by the government, layoffs are swelling the ranks of the desperate, and a whole generation of recent college graduates is facing a future without prospects.
It was early July when it finally happened and nothing came out of the ATM. With a sinking feeling, Iñigo Ortega went into his usual bank to print out his statements. The bank's maintenance fee had been debited from his account, and there was nothing left -- his savings were gone. It had taken only three months to go completely broke.
As recently as March, Ortega, 36, was employed as the head of a small but upscale architectural firm on La Castellana, Madrid's grand boulevard, making €3,000 ($4,280) a month. But the firm specialized in luxury restorations and renovating hotels in historic buildings, and it had been getting fewer and fewer lucrative contracts. It wasn't really a surprise, seeing that the worsening economic crisis was keeping millions of foreign tourists away. The most creative designer on the firm's six-person team was the last one to be let go. And it was Ortega's bad luck that he had been working for the last four years as a freelancer without a set contract that would have entitled him to claim unemployment benefits.
"My job's gone, my money's gone and so is my hope," Ortega says bitterly as he leafs nervously through his documents. He has sued the owner of the architectural firm for the social security contributions he never paid, overtime hours, holiday pay and a settlement. He doesn't want to accept the fate of being "in my late thirties and dependent on my parents again, like a kid still in school." Ortega got the job after eight years of university followed by internships with some of the best firms in the business. But now it was all for nothing. At first he was needed. Ortega created a hip Web site for his boss and taught him computer drafting. But now the boss doesn't need him. He doesn't know what the future holds and is trying to figure out how he can "scrape through from day to day."
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