The pandemic has aggravated the low capacity for emancipation that young people already dragged from the last economic crisis in 2008, according to the latest report from the Emancipation Observatory presented this Thursday by the Youth Council of Spain (CJE).

Despite the fact that the second semester of 2019 was already traumatic, the confinement and growth of youth unemployment in the first six months of 2020 lowered the rate to lows at the beginning of the century: only 17.3% of Spaniards aged between 16 and During this period, 29 years lived away from the home of his parents or a relative.

You have to go back to 2002 to find a lower percentage, and the future does not look promising: “Without quality employment, it will not be possible to reach the expected rates,” said Elena Ruiz, president of the CJE,

Adrià Junyent, vice president of the Council, has related the low emancipation with the job insecurity of the population under 30 years of age.

“We young people have suffered more from ERTE – 29.6%, compared to 24% of the rest of the population – with the loss of wages that this implies.” Worse still is the employment rate, where only one in three of Spaniards between 16 and 29 years old has a job, and it drops to 18.2% between 16 and 24.

In addition, youth unemployment is double that of among the rest of the population, 30%. “We have suffered the biggest rise in unemployment this year [compared to other age groups], 4.8 percentage points more,” Junyent added.

Women continue to be much more likely to become independent: 20.8% of them do so, compared to 14% of men. However, this year the number of emancipated women has fallen slightly more than men, as they have been more affected by the pandemic.

“They have gone more to the ERTE, have a higher rate of inactivity and concentrate more part-time,” has detailed the political scientist of the CJE.

The crisis has also hit the population that only has primary education the hardest, due to their job insecurity. In this group, emancipation has fallen 2.3 percentage points, to 23%, between January and June 2020. Immigrants are the next most affected. 34.6% live independently, 3.4 points less than in 2019.

On the other hand, Joffre López, author of the study, sociologist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​has highlighted the ironic situation that has occurred this year, in which there has been a reduction in the price of the real estate market that has not been taken advantage of .

“For young people, even though prices have dropped, the chances of emancipation are even lower than last year.”

In this way, in rent the prices start from 900 euros on average, an average mortgage from 600 euros and a shared flat from 269 euros. But with an average salary of 973 euros among young Spaniards, the rent would represent 93% of their net salary, “above the reasonable 30% [established by various organizations]” , López pointed out.

A mortgage would be 56% and share 27.7%. In the case of the mortgage, in addition, the entry and taxes should be added, “the equivalent of three full years of salary.”

Compared with previous years, emancipation reached minimums in 1997 —with 15% – and maximums of 26% in 2008.

Since then, the figure has decreased until this year, when the decline has been accentuated by the health situation , which has led to the deepest drop in emancipation since 1988 (1.3 points less from 18.7% in 2019).

By Communities, the Basque Country is the region where more young people have returned to live with their parents in the first half of the year (three points less in the emancipation rate), followed by Extremadura (2.5 points less) and Asturias (2, 1 point less).

Clarks, the iconic British shoe brand , may have its days numbered as a family business. After staying at the helm for 195 years, the Clarks, who own 84.8% of the company, are ready to hand over control to LionRock Capital, a Hong Kong-based venture capital fund.

Its managers have committed to injecting 100 million pounds (111.7 million euros) to try to float a business that had already been making water before the commercial bump generated by the pandemic.

Founded in 1825 by brothers James and Cyrus Clark in the small town of Street, south-west Britain, the firm has been under the command of a traditional , discreet family line with Quaker roots for almost two centuries .

Despite the international expansion and growth of the company, the Clarks never moved the headquarters and their hometown benefited for years from the shoemaker’s prosperity. At least until 2006, when production was completely delocalized.

Today, its offices are still on the street, but the vast majority of its products come from Vietnam, Cambodia, India and China.

The difficult situation in which the company finds itself has been leaving a trace on the streets of Street.

Among the most recent examples is the robotic-assisted plant the Clarks tried to return to production with on British soil in 2017. It was closed less than two years later for failing to meet targets.

The same fate befell the Shoe Museum last year, where Clarks had been exhibiting relics for 70 years, such as James and Cyrus’ first creation: slippers made from scraps left over from their sheepskin rug business.

But the firm’s challenges are too great to allow for sentimentality. “Clarks is in survival mode,” says Nicholas Found, Senior Analyst for Retail Week, a publication specializing in the UK retail industry. “Their profits before taxes have been falling for five consecutive years .So this problem expands beyond the pandemic,” explains the expert by phone.

The footwear brand had a turnover of 1,469 million pounds (1,640 million euros) last year, which represented an annual fall of 4.6%, according to the Statista portal.

The end result was losses of 83 million pounds (93 million euros), more than double the red numbers of 31 million pounds that they showed from the accounts of the previous year.

The company announced 900 layoffs around the world last May, in addition to another 170 made in December 2019. Although the firm insists that there will be no “immediate” closures of premises and that its employees will continue to receive their salaries , has already opened a consultation period, the first step towards a collective redundancy, with its 4,000 employees in the UK.

For Found, the Clarks case is a good example of the challenges faced by “old-school” British brands, which include the emergence of e-commerce and the dilemma of whether to maintain their traditional stores. Internet sales are gaining ground in the United Kingdom and before the pandemic they accounted for 20% of the total, according to the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics.

With the confinement, they reached 32.8% and now they are around 26%. This and the rise of teleworking are accelerating the crisis that the British high street was already experiencing, which between January and August 2020 suffered the destruction of almost 125,000 jobs, according to the Center for Retail Research.

A situation that led another icon, the department store chain Marks & Spencer, to register its first half of losses this year since its IPO in 1926.

“What the covid-19 has done is to test the accounts of results to the point where these historic businesses are fighting for their lives, ”says Found.

One of the main drawbacks, according to the expert, is the excess of establishments, with a surplus of 20%, according to a study by Retail Week and the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. Fixed costs such as renting the premises are another heavy burden.

It is not surprising that LionRock Capital has made the signing of an agreement with Clarks creditors to lower the rent of its stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland as a condition of the operation.

The proposal includes that the price is no longer fixed and is calculated according to the billing of each establishment, reducing to zero in 60 of its 320 stores. An “absolute necessity,” Philip de Klerk, the company’s acting chief financial officer, said in a press release.

This company voluntary agreement (CVA), a kind of pre-bankruptcy for creditors, must be approved in December by 75% of them.

Renters are a long way from reaching the 26% needed to block it, according to the British business premises association, the British Property Federation (BPF), which accuses the shoe brand of abusing this legal mechanism.

“The owners are the only creditors that will be affected by the CVA of Clarks, since they represent a small percentage of the vote and cannot influence the result,” lamented in an email Melanie Leech, chief executive of the BPF.

Criticisms also come from the labor sector. Gareth Lowe, regional head of the Unite union, lamented in the publication This is Money that the Clarks received “lavish dividends” of 13.4 million pounds during two years in which the company added losses of 114.2 million. “This calls into question the corporate priorities of the Clarks,” he said.

The firm is confident that the entry of LionRock Capital will serve to “revitalize” the brand and “position it for future sustainable growth in the long term,” it said in a press release.

The Hong Kong fund has stakes in Didi, known as the “Chinese Uber,” Inter Milan and Hailo, another taxi app. According to LionRock Capital founder Daniel Tseung, the investment “will not only strengthen Clarks’ position as one of the world’s most recognized brands, but will also allow expansion into key emerging markets.”

The Clarks, who together with the other shareholders will vote in December for LionRock Capital to be the majority shareholder, will continue to have a stake in the business, although the percentage has not yet been made public.

Currently, the company that created the Wallabees boots and moccasins has 10,000 employees in more than 100 markets, including Spain, where there are 34 stores that, according to the company, will not be affected by the operation.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador must hurry to get on Joe Biden’s train, for his sake, that of his government and that of Mexico.

He will already pay the cost of backing President Donald Trump in his allegations of electoral fraud and his attempts to reverse an election violating the principles of democracy, but that can be maintained on a personal level, but his stubbornness must turn to pragmatism in the face of the announcements that the president-elect is doing in matters of foreign and security policy, and that his collaborators establish contact with those who will be the heads of those sectors to start working.

López Obrador does not need to congratulate Biden, but rather act intelligently because the first appointments have policies antagonistic to his.

The most confrontational issue will be energy. During the Trump administration, frictions were continuous with the US private sector due to the change of rules, but the indifference of the head of the White House and the lack of energy of Ambassador Christopher Landau to defend the interests of the energy sector of his country before the violations, will change in the Biden Administration.

The next Secretary of State will be Antohny Blinken, very close to him for 30 years, and with extensive experience in foreign policy issues.

Blinken will have among its missions that the United States returns to the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which seeks to promote clean energy.

López Obrador is an enemy of them, and has opted for dirty energies. Its entire policy has been focused on the injection of resources for the generation of fossil fuels, even seeking to renovate refineries – such as Cadereyta -, despite environmental pollution studies.

Ignoring the evaluation studies of her in projects such as the Mayan Train, Dos Bocas and the Santa Lucia airport, go against the guidelines outlined by Biden since the campaign. “Either we adjust our policies, or the demands under the trade agreement with the United States, could be continuous,” admitted a Mexican diplomatic source.

The energy issue is transversal in the new Biden team. Avril Hines, who will hold the position of Director of National Intelligence, a key position within the White House because under her supervision are all the intelligence services, civil and military, of the United States government, worked in recent years in energy responsibilities She worked during the Barack Obama administration as deputy director of the CIA and deputy director of the National Security Council.

The Obama White House was particularly tough on Peña Nieto for his rapprochement with China, and intervened so that the Bullet Train between Mexico City and Querétaro was frustrated by the financing of Beijing.

The government abandoned other plans for heavy Chinese investment at Cabo Pulmo in the Sea of ​​Cortez and at the Dragon Mart in Cancun.

When Peña Nieto invited Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, the then head of the National Security Council, Susan Rice, demanded from former Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu, during a G-20 meeting in Asia, that there had to be consequences for that affront to the Democrats.

Upon returning, Peña Nieto dismissed Luis Videgaray, the Secretary of the Treasury who promoted the meeting. Currently, although Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard worked on the relationship with Trump like Videgaray, it was López Obrador who showed his dedication to the head of the White House, accepting his impositions.

A measure that López Obrador did to satisfy Trump, will be reversed in the first 100 days of Biden’s government, the Migrant Protection Protocols, when sovereignty was ceded to accept that Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States would wait in Mexican territory the process of your request, through a memorandum with the Trump administration, signed by Alejandro Celorio, the legal consultant of the Foreign Ministry.

The person responsible for dismantling that infamous agreement will be the new Secretary of Territorial Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban-American who, as a federal prosecutor in California, took the cases against the so-called Mexican Mafia, which operated from prisons, and was director of Migration.

In the Obama administration, whose work on behalf of the human rights of immigrants was widely recognized. Mayorkas, on the other hand, has had a godmother for 20 years, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who since the Obama administration defended arbitrariness in Mexico against the Sempra company, whose subsidiary Ienova was painted by López Obrador and the director of the CFE , Manuel Bartlett, as the enemy of the Nation.

On the issue of security, what will probably change radically is the architecture of bilateral cooperation, which was managed through the High Level Group between the two countries, where Ambassador Landau sat in front of six secretaries, at a table chaired by the Secretary of Defense, General Luis Cresencio Sandoval.

It was deficient, and today it can be described as failure due to the mutual loss of credibility. The rebuilding of trust will be very uphill, because the release of General Salvador Cienfuegos was for political reasons, given the recent criticism of the new intelligence director, Haines, of Trump’s politicization of justice.

The networks of ties of the next officials do not look good for López Obrador, who says he knows Biden, when in reality, the then vice president met him in Mexico when in the 2016 presidential campaign, he came to palomear the candidates.

However, the bilateral relationship is very important for the United States, which will help López Obrador to qualify his disdain for Biden, if he hurries the reconstruction of the relationship with the Democrats, discreetly if he wants, but effectively, and gives the green light to officially have your diplomats come up and work with the president-elect team.

Banco Santander has proposed this Thursday to the unions that employees can take advantage of early retirement from the age of 55 in the framework of the negotiation of the Employment Regulation File (ERE) that it prepares.

The entity plans to eliminate 5,072 jobs, through some 4,000 early retirements and 1,000 relocations, according to the unions, which qualify these figures as “inadmissible” and demand to reduce them. They also want to lower the 900 planned office closures before talking about the specific economic conditions that the bank has presented to them.

The unions, who will meet with the bank again on December 1, believe that the proposed adjustment is disproportionate and the conditions “totally insufficient to cover this file with real voluntary will.”

The workers ‘representatives, led by the Workers’ Commissions (CC OO) as the majority union, affirm that if Santander has little budget to pay those it wants to fire, “what it must do is reduce the number of casualties from this ERE ”, They indicate in CC OO.

According to the entity’s proposal, employees who take early retirement would have to have been at the bank for at least 15 years.

By age groups, from youngest to oldest, those aged 55 to 57 would receive 65% of the pensionable salary (with a discount of the unemployment amount for two years) and a special agreement up to 63 years of age, with a maximum revaluation of 1% .

Employees between 58 and 61 years of age would receive 70% of the pensionable salary (discounted from the unemployment amount for two years) plus the same special agreement until age 63.

For those over 62 years of age, the entity offers 20 days per year worked, with a ceiling of 12 monthly payments.

Likewise, those over 55 who do not reach the required minimum seniority of 15 years would receive 30 days of pensionable salary with a limit of 20 monthly payments, plus volunteer bonuses, seniority and a special agreement with a maximum revaluation of 1% up to 63 years .

Those under 55 years of age are offered incentive leave of 30 days of pensionable salary, with a limit of 20 monthly payments plus voluntary bonuses.

From the UGT they demand “real voluntariness within the process, quotas by age, province and a maximum percentage of denials of voluntary adhesions”.

They also consider that priority of permanence in the bank should be given to the groups established by the bank and that there is “equalization of the handicaps of children and employees so that both are equal to or greater than 33% and extend it to spouses with serious illness or handicap ”.

In the midst of a storm over the harmonization of regional taxes, the Tax Agency (AEAT) has confirmed that there is a “growing demand” by the regions to investigate fictitious changes of tax domicile.

This has been assured by the director of the AEAT, Jesús Gascón, at the closing of the XXX Congress of State Finance Inspectors, which was held this Thursday virtually.

Although this task does not appear explicitly in the Agency’s latest strategic plan, Gascón has ensured that “every year there is a section of the control plan guidelines dedicated to collaboration with the autonomous communities, in which it is expressly mentioned the control procedure of fiscal domiciles ”.

These controls have the objective of detecting fraudulent changes of address from one region to another with lower taxes, normally those levied on assets and inheritances and donations, which are totally assigned to the autonomies.

Gascón’s words come at a time when there is a crossfire between the community of Madrid and the central government, before the ERC amendment to the Budgets to raise the tax on patrimony and the intention of the Treasury to harmonize the ceded taxes – something that had been contemplated for a long time.

The region of the capital is the only one that provides a 100% discount on the wealth tax ―and applies generous discounts to tribute on inheritances and donations―, which is why other autonomies accuse it of unfair competition even though the law grants full communities regulatory capacity on the encumbrances they have assigned.

Gascón has also made reference to another matter that has raised blisters in recent weeks: the entry of inspectors into the homes (residence or company) of taxpayers to carry out checks when there are suspicions of fraud.

“It is clear that we need an intermediate channel between criminal proceedings and notification of the inspection,” he said. “We are in analysis and see what happens.”

The controversy was born by a recent ruling of the Supreme Court that ruled that the Treasury cannot carry out the registration without notifying the declarant in advance, since the inviolability of the home is a constitutional right.

A few weeks later, when asked in the Congress of Deputies about the ruling, Gascón defended the surprise effect of home inspections , claiming that a prior notice does not seem “very effective when there is the possibility of destruction of evidence.”

“The Supreme is pronounced on a concrete case, and says that the action was not sufficiently motivated for the judicial entrance. We have little to say about that, there is no debate, ”Gascón insisted this Thursday.

“What the Supreme Court also says, which I think is what needs to be analyzed, is that in order to enter a business it is necessary to have previously communicated the start of the inspection activity.

My reflection in Parliament is that this is going to be very ineffective, and I said that we had opened an internal debate and that it could reach Parliament ”.

Gascón recalled that 97% of the actions are aimed at legal persons, not physical ones, and that there is little conflict. The average amount settled thanks to these actions, he pointed out, is about 500,000 euros.

“The percentage of income in the voluntary period is higher than usual, and the behavior afterwards is better.”

The Italian company Fincantieri announced an agreement with the Government of Yucatán to install the largest shipbuilding and maintenance center in Mexico and Latin America.

The project will total an investment ranging from 300 to 500 million dollars, and includes the construction of two dry docks within a 40-hectare site in Puerto Progreso, which will house a useful complex to repair or build vessels of up to 400 meters of length or length, from 2024.

The state government tenders for the first part of the work will be launched next year, in order to start dredging works from the second half of 2021, with the intention of raising the current capacity of Puerto Progreso to 15 meters of draft, which is around 9 meters, reported those involved.

The letter of intent was remotely signed this Tuesday by the secretary of Economic Development and Labor of Yucatán, Ernesto Herrera Novelo, and the director of the Fincantieri Services division, Giorgio Rizzo, with the endorsement of the governor Mauricio Vila Dosal and the general director from Fincantieri, Fabio Galla, informed the company that specified the market it intends with this project:

“Particularly cruise ships, large oil and gas freighters, which need complex operations. The infrastructure will also have a lifting platform for units up to 150 meters in length ”, explained Fincantieri.

This maintenance center will have cranes, workshops, offices and specialized equipment, reported the group that is listed on the Italian stock market and that reported revenues of 5,849 million euros in 2019, according to its public reports.

The Yucatecan government will be responsible for the initial works that include dredging, construction of infrastructure and main plants, which will represent an initial spill for construction companies and jobs in that branch.

Fincantieri will initially act as a consultant for the first works and later will build the state-of-the-art facilities, such as workshops and cranes, in addition to staff training both at local institutions and at the Fincantieri Academy.

Herrera Novelo reported in an interview that among the companies directly benefiting from the construction of the project will be Grupo Millet, a Mexican manufacturer of windows, which recently expanded its capacity in the municipality of Baca, Mérida conurbation, and Niplito, a distribution company of construction supplies. , in addition to suppliers of materials.

The Italian company to be installed in Progreso – a port located 40 minutes from Mérida – will also have the power to provide the services required by the Mexican Navy. Its influence will have an impact on the entire North and Central American region, for ships that are currently served in Houston or Panama, reported the Secretary of Economic Development and Labor of Yucatan, who stressed that it was essential for Italians to have the legal certainty it provides. this entity.

Herrera Novelo explained that for his state, this investment will have a development impact comparable to that of Grupo Modelo, of AB Inbev, which invested last five years in the Yucateca Brewery, which triggered others related to the food sector, particularly the producer Kekén pork meat, from Grupo Kuo.

Once the shipyard reaches full operational capacity, it will be able to receive around 700 full-time employees and a supply chain that will involve 2,500 workers in high demand seasons, Fincantieri reported

The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández , placed an Argentinos Juniors shirt on the coffin of Diego Armando Maradona , who is veiled this Thursday at the Casa Rosada, seat of the Government.

The shirt is from the squad where ‘Pelusa’ played from 1975 to 1981, after being in Los Cebollitas and Estrella Roja.

Fernández also displayed two handkerchiefs belonging to the organization Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, used by human rights leaders to cover their heads during their rounds demanding the appearance of their loved ones who disappeared during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983).

The former soccer player was very close to the Mothers and other humanitarian leaders such as the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

The Argentine government decreed three days of national mourning for the death of the revered by the fans of Boca, Naples, among others.

Thousands of people fire the creator of ‘La mano de Dios’ by making long lines outside the venue, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several fans confronted the police in the vicinity of the Casa Rosada, located in the Plaza de Mayo, in downtown Buenos Aires, and threw down the fences installed to control the flow of people.

Finally, the agents were able to contain the overflows and ordered the lines of those who were entering the official compound.

The Argentine pamboleros arrived at the Casa Rosada during the night.

Inside, in a main hall and behind a long parapet behind which people paraded, is the closed coffin with the remains of the former captain of the 1986 World Cup champion team, covered by an Argentine flag and dozens of T-shirts from different football clubs thrown by visitors.

The retired player died on the eve of a cardiac arrest in the house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where he had been confined to recover from a cranial edema operation on November 3.

Those who marched in front of the wooden coffin blew kisses in the air, beat their chests with their fists and shouted “Let’s go Diego. Others wept inconsolably.

The wake began at dawn with an intimate ceremony for family and friends, before allowing public access.

Amazon, Mercado Libre and Best Buy are the three retailers that demonstrated the best customer service capacity during the coronavirus pandemic, revealed a study by Deloitte.

The consulting firm evaluated 11 capabilities of companies and their interaction with consumers such as the catalog, the ease of search on the platform, recommendations on the site, information on payment methods, interaction with the customer from the customer service and social networks , among others, being Amazon, Mercado Libre and Best Buy the ones that have advanced the most during this contingency.

Amazon, Mercado Libre and Best Buy, the retailers with the best customer service during the pandemic

“We evaluate the capabilities that are seen and the user experience of the platforms, there are still many opportunities to improve, starting with the management of inventory in real time,” said Manuel Ostos, leading Retail partner in consulting for Deloitte Mexico.

In general, Retailers in Mexico have focused on developing transactional capabilities rather than capabilities to improve the end-to-end experience.

Clarification on note Amazon, Mercado Libre and Best Buy: the retailers with the best customer service during the pandemic

In relation to the note published on September 28, entitled “Amazon, Mercado Libre and Best Buy: retailers with the best customer service during the pandemic” we want to clarify some points:

The material referred to in the text was intended to collect the characteristics of retailers that have performed well during the pandemic in 11 eCommerce categories, but in no case was it intended to make a definitive ranking of these types of establishments in our country.

Likewise, the Deloitte Consulting Group document did not intend to give ratings to the retail companies mentioned in the note, as the analysis focuses on identifying important characteristics for the user, in relation to their shopping experience.