Madrid : Higher or lower unemployment?

Hi all,

I'm still thinking of moving to Spain within the next couple of months and was wondering what the job market was like in Spain generally. I have friends in Madrid so this would be the logical choice but if there were better chances of employment elsewhere in Spain I'd consider that. I'm in IT as mentioned before but I'm really after a general idea of the job market as a whole.

Thanks
Dom

Dommo, I'm sure the other registered (and possibly unemployed IT) Spaniards can give you a better idea on this topic than me.

About 2 years ago, maybe 3 years ago, I got together with a friend in Madrid and his two friends. These two friends were BOTH unemployed IT people. They'd successfully completed their studies, had been certified/licensed to be employed as IT people, but there were no/few jobs to be found for them.

Things are no doubt a little better now than then but there still seems to be a "glut" (i.e. overabundance) of qualified IT people in Spain and not enough jobs to go around. Unless you have specific, special skills not typically found in Spain you might well have a very very difficult time finding work. During the high Dot-Com years, like everywhere, MANY MANY kids were going to college to get IT jobs. Then, just as they were getting out of college, BOOM!/BUST!, and now they're either unemployed, underemployed, or went back to school for more education.

I'd bet our own Antonio would know A LOT on this topic. He's one of the lucky ones. Well, LUCK has nothing to do with it. "Madrileño's got mad skillz."

Good luck! Saludos, MadridMan

Dommo, good luck and go for it. So long as you a) can speak Spanish b) have plenty of recent experience in IT -- you should be able to find work in Madrid. Have a look on www.infojobs.net and enter ingles in the search criteria. Or look on www.jobserve.co.uk and enter Madrid or Spanish. The IT business though is incredibly short-sighted (especially in the UK). If you lack experience or are more than 6 months from your last job - forget it. Also, Madrid is the top place for IT jobs, followed by Barcelona. It doesn't mean you can't get work elsewhere - but why would you want to?

Thanks guys. I guess the answer is Madrid. My intention is to go and work in Spain doing pretty much anything but I guess it would be more sensible to stay in Madrid just in case the opportunity to get back into IT presents itself. At the moment I am so obsessed with moving to Spain that I will do pretty much anything to keep me going.

I'm going to be looking for IT work in about 3 weeks, probably in Madrid (although I'd rather live in Barca ). I'll let you know how I get on. I've got a lot of experience in C++ and Java, so I'm hoping it won't be too tough. The longer I'm here, the more intimidated I am about working in Spanish though, it's a different level of the language for sure. I can hold a conversation about most things if they take pity and speak slowly, but working in a professional job is something else....

Ojalà!

Good luck in your search Lemming and do let us know how you get on. I think I might just attempt to get a job in an Irish bar. That should solve the problem of not being fluent in spanish. Either that or a job where I don't need to talk a lot. Maybe a road sweeper or something. "Perdon, yo limpio"

Nevertheless, the IT market is seriously segmented. And it is not a technnical segmentation (I know java, you know CICS,...) it's more like business oriented clustering (banking industry IT, telco,image and media IT,....etc).

It all depends also in your level of experience. If you are aiming to middle - upward level you are probably better-off in Madrid.

IT job? better in Madrid. Here is the spanish govmnt., large minsteries and companies. There's a lot of work and the main IT firms are settled here.
And it's better paid than anwhere else in Spain.
There has been a lot of unenployment problems lately, as MM says, but now if you have enough skills there shoul be no problem.
And language is not a big issue: first, IT work is the same everywhere, there are similar terms and english is very common in this job.
It's more important for a spanish IT worker to understand english than the opposite.
Of course, your mates and clients will be spanish, so you should know the language but... you don't need to be fluent. Well, in a few months, you WILL be fluent.

I went to reply to this a day or two ago, but amusingly the IP of the Cyber Cafe in Chamartín is banned

Thanks all for the advice, I'll let you know how I get on! I'm glad someone thinks I'll be fluent in a couple of months!