Unions brush off talk of green shoots in the Balearics

LOCAL union leaders yesterday challenged claims made this week by the Balearic government and economic bodies that there are indications that the region will pull out of recession this year.

The CCOO Workers Commission yesterday said that 2009 had been “a wasted year” with regards to little construction action taken by the local institutions to respond to the economic and employment problems in the region.

And, the union claims that 2010 “is not going to be a good year” either.
According to the union's Secretary for Employment Policy, Rafael Borras, the percentage of the inactive population remains alarmingly high with many people having signed off from the job centres through frustration at the lack of employment opportunities. But, Borras warned that unless the employment problem is tackled sensibly and properly, the Balearics is going to have a serious social problem because there are scores of people nearing the age of 40 who do not know if their job, if they have one, is stable.

Borras said that the union would like to know on what exactly the economists and the government have based their claims that unemployment is going to bottom out and that the region is going to emerge from the economic crisis over the course of this year.