Spain has a two-speed economy with high unemployment

A DENSE, COMPACT town of 58,000 people near the gateway to Andalucía from Spain’s central plateau, Linares has been successively a centre of lead mining, a railway hub and the site of a large factory making Santana jeeps. Today it is known for having the highest unemployment rate in Spain, at 33%. The Santana factory, with more than 2,000 jobs in its heyday, closed in 2011. A large Corte Inglés department store shut in March and stands in the main square, decaying like a rotten tooth. “I’ve been looking for work for months,” says Carlos Márquez, aged 21, who lost his pre-pandemic job selling mobile phones in a hypermarket. “There’s nothing in Linares. I would have to go somewhere else.”The town’s reputation is overdone, insists Raúl Caro-Accino, the mayor. He points to technology businesses in industrial estates on the outskirts, with more to come. Unemployment is in line with elsewhere in southern and western Spain, the mayor insists. “We have a problem of unqualified labour,” he admits. That goes for much of the country.