Mar 6th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Things Go From Bad to Worse in Spain
I probably won’t have a ton of occasion to link to individual posts simply because it’s a bit far afield from my core areas of interest, but if you ever want to get an in-depth understanding of the economic crisis unfolding in Europe, then put the newspaper down and hurry to read Edward Hugh’s posts at A Fistful of Euros.
As I was just over there recently, this post on Spain where the recession is extremely bad due to enormous dependence on tourism and the construction center (it’s the Florida of Europe) is biting employment deeply.
19 Responses to “Things Go From Bad to Worse in Spain”
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March 6th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
It’s frustrating that their units for unemployment are so unrelated to our units. Is there a similar chart for the US, in their units?
March 6th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Wait. That graph says “% change year on year.” Is that a graph of the derivative??? If so, that’s about the most confusing graph ever.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Construction sector?
Also, parsing your last sentence, it seems as though you’re accusing the blog post of biting employment deeply. Or maybe Spain is enormously dependent on tourism AND the construction [sector] is biting employment deeply. I don’t know. The latter interpretation makes more sense, but in that case what is the verb of the sentence? “This post on Spain” is the subject – but what is the verb?
March 6th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 6th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Wait. That graph says “% change year on year.” Is that a graph of the derivative??? If so, that’s about the most confusing graph ever.
Josh and minderbinder—my reaction was similar to yours. If you click the link, Hugh’s actual post explains everything in detail.
Matt’s choice of graph and grammar, however, are pretty hopeless here.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Note to #4: Best commenter name ever.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Matt’s choice of graph and grammar, however, are pretty hopeless here.
Blame Matt for the paragraph quoted by The English Fucking Language, sure, but I don’t think you can blame him for the confusing graph itself.
I read the title of the graph as saying that it is the percent unemployed compared to the same time last year. So if I’m right, then where the graph shows 50 percent at February 2009, that means 50 percent more people were unemployed in February 2009 than were unemployed in February 2008.
This way of showing it actually makes sense if Spain’s economy is unusually cyclical, and might also be a good way to avoid the problem the US has of not counting unemployed people who don’t collect unemployment benefits. However, I’m not sure my approach is correct, because it seems to be contradicted by later graphs that show raw numbers.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Hasn’t US unemployment increased even faster, if it’s a % year-over-year graph?
March 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
“it’s the Florida of Europe”
Except it’s a lot bigger and fatter. Size really does matter, you know.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
How about:
“As I was just over there recently, I happened to see this post on Spain, where the recession is extremely bad due to enormous dependence on tourism, and where the construction center sector (it’s the Florida of Europe) is biting employment deeply.”
March 6th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Hello, this is me, as it were. Sorry the graph is causing so much confusion. The year on year rates are useful to economists, since they help us see the rate of deterioration, or improvement. I mean, what we need to know is how fast this is deteriorating.
“I read the title of the graph as saying that it is the percent unemployed compared to the same time last year. So if I’m right, then where the graph shows 50 percent at February 2009, that means 50 percent more people were unemployed in February 2009 than were unemployed in February 2008.”
That’s about right. I also publish % of the labour force unemployed charts, which is useful for political debate, but actually is not as useful from an economic point of view, for all the measurement reasons someone mentioned. Y-o-y data is nice, since you don’t have too many seasonal issues, and if the numbers are skewed in some way, well the skew is still the same (more or less).
The thing about Spain though is that this is the really what’s happening in the US “bigtime” (ven if it is a smaller country) in the sense that the credit crunch is just the same (the leveraging at only 250% of GDP isn’t quite as high as the US level, but neither is Spain’s financing capacity), but the construction sector was a much larger part of the economy, and the current account deficit was 10%. So the correction now is massive, and probably will produce an outright banking crisis come 2011 (or something).
March 6th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Hmmm. Meant to strikethrough “center.” Does
strikework?March 6th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
One last try:
As I was just over there recently, I happened to see this post on Spain, where the recession is extremely bad due to enormous dependence on tourism, and where the construction
centersector (it’s the Florida of Europe) is biting employment deeply.March 6th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Edward Hugh: The graph is not inherently confusing—in the company of its fellow graphs on your blog it makes perfect sense. It’s Matt’s out-of-context use of it that’s the confusing part.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Well, seeing as I’m living in yen-land with a government job, perhaps I can finally realize that dream of moving to Spain. As long as the yen keeps rising, and Spain keeps sucking in the housing market.
I’d love to feel pain for everyone, but my life’s too good. Maybe when the full-on depression hits I’ll start regretting it. Until then, party on!
Incidentally, my friend’s company – an industrial adhesive manufacturer that supplies Japanese car companies and various other adhesive-needers just laid off 2 of their 7 QC staff. Sales are down to 30%. Not down BY 30%, but down to 30% of what they were before the recession hit. Everyone, especially the foreigners (it’s a Swiss company) are terrified of losing their jobs and thus their visas to live/work in the country.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
“Hello, this is me, as it were.”
We should all take a little break and really see the beauty of the internet. Someone has a problem with a graph, and the guy who made the graph shows up to explain it. When I was a kid, such things only happened in dreams. But here we are now, and it’s awesome.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“When I was a kid, such things only happened in dreams.”
Or in Annie Hall.
March 6th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
What fostert said. Also, the free porn is awesome too!
March 7th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Re: This way of showing it actually makes sense if Spain’s economy is unusually cyclical, and might also be a good way to avoid the problem the US has of not counting unemployed people who don’t collect unemployment benefits.
US unemployment stats do include people not collecting benefits. What the headline rate does not count are people working part time (who want to work full time) and discouraged job seekers.