Worries in Barcelona over post-virus recovery

As Spaniards begin to plan their exit out of one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, many will not be able to return to their jobs.

In Europe, almost every measure of the economy is in free fall because of the pandemic.

Figures due to be released on Thursday are expected to show a drop of about 4% in the first three months of the year in the eurozone, and an even steeper hit is projected this quarter.

Unemployment, meanwhile, is expected to rise to about 8%.

Spain is no exception - millions of workers have been furloughed ever since the lockdown was imposed in the country in mid-March.

On 2 April, the Labor Ministry said that almost 900,000 workers had lost their jobs since authorities ordered people to stay indoors and closed most retail and service industries on 14 March.

That number is expected to have risen significantly since then.

Construction and services, including the country's important tourism industry that represents 12% of its GDP, have been the hardest-hit areas.

The director of the Barcelona Restaurants Association has warned 25% of restaurants and bars in the city will close in the next 12 months.

Igor Abascal, 48, has been working since 1996 as a waiter and most recently served at an Italian-style restaurant chain inside a shopping centre in Barcelona.

He is one of 22,000 workers the restaurant group has furloughed in Spain due to the state of emergency.

Abascal said that due to his years at the company, he has a better-than-average salary of 1,300 euros (1,406 US dollars) a month.

Even so, Abascal says that his paycheck for March was only for half the month since the government ordered all restaurants and other non-essential retail to close in mid-March.

He and thousands more furloughed workers have to wait until the second week in May before the first unemployment check should come.

And Abascal worries there could be a further delay due to the massive number of filings for unemployment.

Official statistics show that Spain's unemployment rate rose to 14.4% in the first quarter of 2020, up from 13.8 in the last three months of 2019.

At least 285,600 jobs were lost in the same period, the worst result since the financial crisis hit Spain hard in 2013, a quarterly survey by Spain's National Institute of Statistics showed.

At the other end of the spectrum, Keke Sarasola, founder and president of Room Mate Hotels, says he has had to close 28 of his 30 hotels worldwide, including those in Spain.

"I don't have a business," the hotel magnate said, adding that his revenue had dropped to nearly zero and that he also had to furlough most of his employees.

In the meantime, he's made his hotels available to local authorities during the pandemic, and already 13 of them have been hosting health workers and nursing home residents.

Sarasola's boutique hotels cater largely to international business and upscale tourists, and given the collapse of global transport, he fears things won't be the same for a long time.

"Let's not be mistaken. Either we all get out of this one together, or nobody will," he warns.