Latest Canarian unemployment figures

[Janet]

Heard today that Mercadona is setting up tables where you can donate unperishable food.  Am going tomorrow and will look.  I am glad to donate (providing it goes to people in need and not back into the store to be resold) but I still think ad hoc food donation is a bad way to treat our fellow Canarians.

I'd be happy to add a couple of basics to my shop and put them on the table ... but as you say, it's knowing that it's really going where it's needed ... 

[cinnamon]

Heard today that Mercadona is setting up tables where you can donate unperishable food.  Am going tomorrow and will look.  I am glad to donate (providing it goes to people in need and not back into the store to be resold) but I still think ad hoc food donation is a bad way to treat our fellow Canarians.

saw that the other day in mercadona in the gran sur. but it was not mercadona that set up the tables, but a charity organisation outside the supermarket area. a woman approached me and asked if i could buy some more food which would be donated. generally i don't have problem with this, but what buggered me a bit was this persistence with which she came out into the car park as soon as i got out of the car. later then  some more of that group were actually standing at the check outs and literally begging for donations from people who were just packing their bags with food.

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

Thanks cinnamon, that's good intel and I will be vigilant and report what I can. I will shop at the Mercadona in Adeje and see what they have.  Many thanks. 

[Michael]

I'd be happy to add a couple of basics to my shop and put them on the table ... but as you say, it's knowing that it's really going where it's needed ... 

Isn't that what the Bethlemitas Nuns do? Why not give the stuff to them?

[poker]

I am very wary of all these donation groups and charetys .

In Belgium my father had a lot of food shopping at the house , when I asked is there a war going to happen or what .
He sayd no buying it of one of his neighbours he is selling it half price .

When inquiering a bit in the neighberhood his doughter had a lot of children and on welfaire and were going to the foodbank or probably a few of them and then he was selling it again ?

Hopefully here its going to the needy but I don't trust any of the charety's anywhere .

If you know someone needy give it directly , but thats not really possible to help a lot of peaple I understand .

[Janet]

Couldn't agree more, P. I know that even with the Betlemistas I had my (very slight) concerns ... that the food might only go to families with connections to whichever south American country the Betlemistas are connected with (can't remember for the moment), or families "just" in particular municipalities (and if that were the case it probably wouldn't be the southern ones where there's as much poverty as elsewhere, and where we could actually do something ourselves) ...

I think your and Briz's philosophy has to be nearer to the right thing ... just help those around you if you can. If we all do that as much as we can then everyone will get a share.

I have to say, too, that I emailed Caritas a year or so ago to see about regular food drops, I'd have done it, taking food collected in south Tenerife by expat groups. Never got a reply.

And my lawyer chum says that only direct action is safe because "they're all scamming" .... or pretty much, anyway.

[Guanche]

My wife's youngest brother (48) an industrial electrician is now working on 15 day contracts. I don't really understand it. It seems that the government? allows workers or employers to take advantage of Paro while still working??
So he works for 15 days and then signs on for 15 days and so on. As I say I don't begin to understand it. The next step will, I have no doubt, be full unemployment.
So in the immediate family of 13 who are of working age only four (including the above) are working. If I was to include the greater family and friends the picture is even worse.
Another of the wife's brothers, a fully qualified electrical and mechanical engineer (58) has reached the end of his Paro. He, his wife and 15 year old son are now living on €450 a month. The reason he's getting the extra €50 is because of his son.

I am so dam angry.

[Myrtle Hogan-Lance]

That is so disheartening Guanche.  It is hard to believe that such qualified people don't have/can't get permanent employment.  I really hope something happens for them.

I got to the Mercadona in Adeje today, and there were no tables out, nor were there any charity workers seeking donations. 

[Guanche]

I was just thinking,  I'm not really making any point just thinking out loud.
I have family in the UK, brothers their wives, nephews, nieces and cousins. Every one is working save my youngest son who is disabled (not that that should be an excuse but...) At a rough count thats over forty adults all of working age all employed. I don't know anyone in the UK, save my son, who is unemployed.

I have family and friend in France. Again all employed, maybe over 20 people and again I don't know anyone in France who is unemployed.

And here! As I say not making any point just thinking. I've gone past being angry. But WTF! Where does a country or more to the point countries like Spain go to next?

[Janet]

The Canaries was the only autonomous region of Spain, apart from the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla in north Africa, where unemployment went up in May, rising 0.28% from April's figures, a further 538 people out of work. The number of unemployed in these islands now stands at 296,362. May's increase is divided fairly equally between the provinces but again slightly worse for the eastern one: 229 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 309 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The total unemployed in each province is 138,884 in the SCdT, and 157,478 in LPdGC. JA