Speech by President of the Government at inauguration of conference entitled "Can Spain compete in talent?" held by the Association for Progress in Management (APD)

Madam Minister for Employment; Mr Managing Director of the APD; Mr Chairman of ADECCO; public officials; ladies and gentlemen; dear friends,

In the first place, I would like to thank you all for this invitation. I also want to congratulate you on this initiative. Talking about talent is undoubtedly a very important issue, because talent, or indeed the lack of talent, is decisive in a significant part of the lives of people and of countries and is, in general, a reflection of the people who live there.

I would like to take this opportunity to briefly make a few observations, considerations and, if appropriate, offer you some facts.

This conference seeks to provide a response, at least that is the challenge of the title, to a question: Can Spain compete in talent? I will give you my opinion and the reasons behind it. My response is that "yes", Spain can compete in talent. And the reason is very obvious: Spain is a great nation, one of the most important in the world, and that is undoubtedly because it has had people with commitment, determination, drive and effort that have known how to make Spain what it is today, I repeat, one of the most important nations in the world.

Spain is one of the leading countries in the world both in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and per capita income. Spain has a welfare model with a public pension, healthcare and education system that few countries can boast of. Spanish companies hold investments overseas equivalent to 46% of Spanish GDP. We are the second largest global power in tourism: last year, in 2016, 75 million inbound tourists visited our country. In GDP terms, Spain is Europe's second largest exporter, after Germany.

It is not true, as some people say, that we are only an important country in terms of tourism and, in the past, construction. Spain also exports capital goods, cars, chemical products and agri-food products.

Spain is the second-ranked country in the world in high-speed railway lines. Spain has infrastructures that few countries in the world can boast of; you just have to look around to see that.

Spain is the world leader in organ transplants; it is the European country to receive the highest number of Erasmus students; it is the tenth-ranked country in the world in scientific production; it is one of the countries that allocate the most to R&D+i, despite all the propaganda against this claim, and Spain is a country of opportunities. If you look closely at the latest Labour Force Survey, you will see that more than 10% of the people in work in our country are foreigners and this 10% does not include, and there are many of them already, those who hold dual nationality.

And I could go on. And it is clear that this has all been done by people. This has been achieved by Spaniards and many other people who have come here and collaborated, above all, over the course of recent years.

Hence, Spain is a great nation and it is, among other reasons, because of the talent, drive, effort and determination of its people, although we must also acknowledge that there are many people who exert their many" efforts and talents", in inverted commas, in explaining to us how bad everything is, how badly we do everything and how badly we live in this country that 75 million people visit each year, who must be forced to come here because, if not, there is no explanation as to why they would choose to come.

But there is another reason, which is also very important, for showing why Spain can compete in talent. Five years ago - I am sure that you will remember this perfectly - Spain was in a recession and this lasted for five years. In Spain, unemployment was increasing at a rate of 12% per annum; we were under the threat of a bailout; we could not obtain financing; there were many public institutions, and the majority of private companies, that couldn't gain access to financing in the markets; the risk premium was at very high levels, as I am sure you will remember; there were across-the-board economic imbalances in our country; a significant part of the financial system was in trouble, and very serious trouble; we had clear problems of competitiveness; the foreign trade sector had a deficit and inflation was much higher than that of our partners and customers.

Five years on and things are very different: where there was a recession, Spain now enjoys the fastest rate of growth from among the major European economies: we grew by more than 3% in 2015 and 2016; in 2014 growth already stood at 1.4%. No-one is talking about a bailout in Spain any longer. The risk premium is no longer in the papers, probably because it is no longer "bad news". Credit has returned, the financial system has improved, the imbalances have been corrected, we are competitive and we have now enjoyed a foreign trade surplus for the last four years.

And unemployment? I just mentioned to you that five years ago, when I came to power, five long years ago, unemployment was growing at a rate of 12% per annum; well today we have seen some figures that are truly encouraging and which should inspire us to continue working, because they are very good and, if we do things right, we could see many more very good unemployment figures over the course of the coming months and years.

Unemployment fell in April, and this is the largest fall in recorded unemployment in any month on record. I just said to you that five years ago unemployment was growing at a rate of 12% per annum; it is now falling at a rate of almost 11% per annum and unemployment is at its lowest level for the last eight years.

The National Insurance figures are also wonderful; there are 212,000 more contributors to the social security system in this month of April and, in year-on-year terms, there are 658,387 more contributors. That is a very positive figure. The fact that today we can say that there are 658,000 more contributors to the social security system than there were a year ago shows that we are on the right path and heading in the right direction, although under no circumstance should this lead us to say "how well things are going in Spain", but rather what this should do is encourage us to achieve even better results and ensure that many people who are still out of work can find a job soon.

What is true is that the number of National Insurance contributors now exceeds - for the first time since 2009 - the figure of 18 million and this should spur us all on, not only the government, which has its share of responsibility, but not all of it, or even half of it, because the responsibility for what a country is does not correspond to one government or to the public authorities. This is a part of it, but the other part corresponds to the people of the country as a whole.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if we have been able over these last five years to turn the situation around, how are we not going to be able to compete in talent? How many countries would have been able to do this in a period of only five years? Who exported? Who took their companies to export overseas? Who created jobs over all this time? Who invested? Who helped their company to train people? Who helped their country to withstand difficult circumstances and improve the situation? Who helped the Spanish economy to increasingly generate more confidence and credibility beyond Spain's borders? It was undoubtedly the people, the Spanish people, and that is why I can answer the question by saying that yes, we can indeed compete in talent.

And we can compete in talent, because it is the people, the Spanish people, who have done all of this in our country. This shows very well what we are made of and I can say to you that, if we are able to continue doing things well, then things will go even better in Spain.

We are going to grow this year by at least 2.7%, and over the next four years there will be average growth of 2.5% and some 500,000 jobs will be created each year, something that has also happened in both 2015 and 2016. Hence, if we work, if we make an effort and if we put our talent to work, things will undoubtedly go better for us.

What must we do now? I will mention only two things; first, the economic policy that the public authorities must undertake and, second, people.

Economic policy. We must press on with fiscal consolidation policies. If we have gone through an economic crisis, which has been the worst crisis we have seen in the last century, this has been, among other things, because in just two years we went from a surplus in the public accounts of 2% to an 11% deficit. Who would imagine that you could go from a 2% surplus to an 11% deficit?

In 2012, the public deficit stood at 9% and this year we must meet the target set of 3.1%, and we are working to that end. This is undoubtedly a very significant challenge. Maintaining fiscal consolidation policies is what generates credibility, and confidence and, moreover, history shows, without exceptions, that when the deficit is low, more jobs are created, more resources are available and the levels of wealth and well-being rise. And when the public deficit is high, exactly the opposite happens, despite the fact that now, and we are seeing this in the Budget debate, there are some people who, surprisingly, support these other theses. It gives one the feeling that they are knocking their heads against a brick wall and still not getting anywhere.

Second, we should maintain the reforms that have been undertaking in recent years. We should maintain them because we must reform what does not work, but reforming what works on purely ideological grounds is something that makes no sense whatsoever. Hence, undoing the important reforms that have been undertaken in recent years and which, I repeat, have been useful and beneficial, would be foolish.

Third, we must press on with the reform process. Now it is more difficult because we constantly have to make pacts and there are groups that view things differently to us; but we must continue trying.

In terms of people, and here I am returning to talent, I am optimistic about my country. I believe we have a strong pool of talent. It is true that there are people who need more training; of course, we all have to improve, that is clear. But our pool of talent is very sound; our core workers are very good.

I would like to point out several ideas, in a disordered fashion. I will leave things there because, as I said at the beginning, I want to mention some things that I believe are important.

Firstly, it is fundamental - and here the government makes few decisions, as do the local councils and regional governments - it is very important, to acknowledge certain values and principles that normally help a society to work, and to work well. We must acknowledge merit; we must acknowledge effort; we must acknowledge the work people do; those who do things best and know more should be promoted; we must recover the value of… Recover this, no, because it exists; but we must acknowledge work that is well done, in short. These are values that should also be contained in study plans, but that you can learn in other places.

In another scheme of things, it is very important to remain committed to Dual Vocational Training. This is starting to become more widespread in large companies, but it still needs to be given a further boost. Vocational Training is also very important: the number of pupils has increased and, of course the number of people who have studied Vocational Training and have then gone on to find a job has also increased, and greatly. It is very important to take continuous training seriously. The world is changing very quickly, and hence, if we don't want to be left behind, we must adapt to those changes that are constantly evolving.

Languages are undoubtedly important in the education system, in the first place; knowledge is important, in the second place; new technologies are also important, in the third place, and the digital world is very important. Many jobs in Europe have been left vacant, according to a report presented not many months ago by the European Commission at a European Council meeting, due to a lack of qualifications.

Hence, these three things are important, but the personality of people is also important. Languages are important, knowledge is important as are technologies; but then it is important to know how to move in life; to know how to handle difficult situations; to know when to say "yes" and when to say "no"; to know how to look in another direction when this is necessary; to have strength in tough circumstances; to be fair; to be a better person… All of these things are also very important in life and form part of what we call talent, something in which Spain, at least in my humble opinion, can definitely compete in.

Thank you very much.