NSAN
2009
THE UNIVERSITY JAIRY KANSAN
MONDAY MARCH 23, 2008
MONDAY, MARCH 23. 2009
NEWS 9A
INTERNATIONAL
ID PRESS
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Easy living of Spain's recent past may become distant memory
BY JORGE SAINZ
Associated Press
ALMERIA, Spain — In the good old days of a very recent past, construction worker Antonio Montoya could afford two cars and a nice duplex for his family of six, with a sunny patio and pet canaries singing away.
Construction worker Antonio Montoya, 54, poses in front of a construction site paralyzed because of the crisis in the real estate sector in Almeria, southern Spain, on Feb. 19. In recent past, Montoya could afford two cars and a nice duplex for his family of six. Work was abundant in Spain then, but now Montoya is unemployed and has to go every month to the employment office, catching a bus to save gasoline, and takes his place in a sullen, ever-growing line of jobless people.
Spanish real estate was booming, jobs were abundant, and as Montoya would drive past the unemployment office, he felt like he was gazing at another planet. "I would say to myself, I'd never be in that situation."
Now, once a month, Montoya goes to that same office, catching a bus to save on gasoline, and joins the sullen, ever-growing line. He sniffs out job offers, signs for his 750-euro ($970) monthly benefit and goes back home, often to meals of leftovers.
"Iimagine now, here I am at age 54, without a job," Montoya says in disgust. "I don't know how long I will be able to hold on."
Almeria Province, a bone-dry patch of coastal southeast Spain, was once the setting for spaghetti westerns such as "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Later it became a place to make fortunes building sun-drenched vacation homes and golf courses. High-tech green-houses sprang up, offering Europe a year-round source of fruit and vegetables.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Now, two years after the real estate bubble burst, the province is one of the gushing wounds in Spain's recession-plagued economy.
Almeria's unemployment rate of 25 percent is one of Spain's highest, and makes the nationwide figure of 13.9 percent — already the highest in the European Union — seem mild.
As the global meltdown worsens, it offers a glimpse of where Spain may be heading. The government says unemployment will reach 16 percent this year, and some forecasters say it may approach 20 percent.
In many ways Almeria mirrored the nationwide model of construction serving a key engine of more than a decade of solid and sometimes robust economic growth, until mortgage rates rose and credit conditions tightened.
At first glance, as in much of Spain, not much seems to be wrong in Almeria, the provincial capital. At midday, bars fill with people sipping a pre-luncheon glass of vermouth or beer, restaurants are packed and movie theaters do a decent business.
But "for sale" signs hang from apartment balconies. Many storefronts are shut and their windows whitewashed. Construction sites stand half-finished and abandoned.
On the outskirts of the city lies one particularly grim example: idle cranes next to the skeletons of two high-rise apartment buildings that were to be part of a huge subdivision with the chirpy name Pueblo de Luz, or City of Light. Its developer ran out of money.
Antonio Rosal, an official of the Spanish labor federation Comisiones Obrera, says his office in Almeria simply cannot keep up with all the mass-layoff cases his office is negotiating with Spanish companies. Under Spanish law, talks with unions on severance terms are mandatory.
Hard times are nothing new to those old enough to remember the economic stagnation of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, when Spain's economy was a backwater closed to modernizing influences. It would take a decade of hard work to whip Spain into shape for its 1986 admission to the European Union, the economic engine that would turn it into the world's eighth biggest economy.
Now, Rosal said. Almeria is realizing that many low-skill workers such as construction laborers overspent on houses and cars, believing the good times would last forever, but that its economy lacked a stable core of
"Here we have been living the high life for 10 years, and it turns out there was not as much of a middle class as we thought," Rosal said. "To be honest, I don't think we will ever get back to the way things were."
higher-level earners who could weather bad times.
Even when he was doing well, Montoya earned just 1,200 euros ($1,550) a month. But back then his four sons, all living at home and working in construction, chipped in and life was good.
Now, all of them are jobless, and three of them, aged 17 to 32, are still in the nest.
Francisco Navas,
39, talks to the
Associated Press inside his
greenhouse in El Ejido,
southern Spain, Feb. 19.
Navas, who grows cucumbers and zucchini in greenhouses that cover an area equivalent to seven football fields says things are picking up now but last year he found himself in a pinch and had to ask the bank for a loan.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NATIONAL Michigan teenager dies when Tasered by police
Police didn't release his name and said state police are investigating.
BAY CITY, Mich. — Police in Michigan say a 15-year-old boy has died after being Tasered by officers who were trying to break up a fight.
A Bay City police news release says officers answered a report of an early morning fight on Sunday. The statement says two males were arguing in an apartment, and one of them "attempted to fight the officers."
Deputy Chief Thomas Pletzke tells WNEM-TV police placed one officer on administrative leave.
Associated Press
Police say officers Tasered him and his reaction led them to immediately call for emergency medical help. He was pronounced dead at Bay Regional Medical Center.
Nassau County authorities said the officer was on his way home Sunday morning when he saw the smoke at an East Rockaway home. They say he rang the bell and banged on the door until the residents woke.
EAST ROCKAWAY, N.Y. — Authorities on New York's Long Island say an off-duty police officer saved a family when he noticed smoke coming from their home and woke them up.
Two adults and three teenagers escaped without injury. The officer's name wasn't immediately disclosed.
Burbank police say Officer Kerry Schlif was on traffic control at the Pasadena Marathon when he heard about the fire a block away. Schlif ran to the house, kicked down a door and pulled the homeowner to safety.
RESCUE
Off-duty officer wakes family in burning home
Police in California say one of their own also rescued a 66-year-old man from a house fire Sunday.
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Associated Press
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