PRISA Radio and Cadena SER focus on the plight of youth at the annual POR conference

PRISA Radio and Cadena SER have hosted the fifth edition of the conference POR (the acronym for Think, Express and React in Spanish), at the Reina Sofia Museum, which was presented and chaired by Iñaki Gabilondo. This year’s event focused on youth unemployment. The journalist opened the conference by recalling that the unemployment rate among young people has now reached 48.7%. He spoke of his concern for the consequences of this serious situation, such as the "the millions of broken dreams, hopes dashed or children that will never be born. " The journalist added that "youth unemployment is a symptom of the disease affecting the entire social fabric."

Actor Alberto Amarilla opened the debate with a very personal view of the dramatic situation. In his opinion, we can speak less of a lost generation than a cheated one "and this deception was born of the greed of each and every one of us. We’ve educated ourselves and the reward, in the form of a job, never arrived ", which has meant that "parents have had to open the doors of their homes to their offspring and pay their mortgages." The young actor noted that the State had been overprotective "and now that the State is shaking, we are still asking mother state what we have to do," he said. For Alberto Amarilla the system means that youth now lasts till age 45, but "I want to be a parent too. Don’t condemn us to eternal youth. Perhaps we are obsessed with expectations that can never be met." Finally, the actor, from Extremadura, made a call for youth to react to the difficulties. "If I have to wake up, I’ll wake up, if I have to act, I will act, but I will do so from my circumstances."

The day continued with a panel of two unemployed youth, an entrepreneur, a Spanish student who lives in London and the President of the Youth Council, Ricardo Ibarra. The latter assessed the current situation and how it is affecting young people. "The opportunities that young people are finding in Spain are very precarious so there are many who are leaving the country. To talk about youth is almost to talk of precariousness". Despite the grim situation, the two young unemployed youths were committed to fighting with the tools at their disposal: training and education.

Adelaida de la Calle, president of the Conference of Rectors, Manuel Marin, former president of the Spanish House of Congress; Juncal Garrido, headhunter at Russell Reynolds, and writer Joaquin Lorente, made up the second panel. All stressed the need for more training opportunities and for companies to harness the talent of young people.