By: Kira Vermond | The Globe and Mail | February 25, 2013
Read More, and see what Scott Plaskett says about the lack of savings.
Wandering the streets that flank Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya last October, cafés were already bustling by 10:30 in the morning with patrons lingering over glasses of Estrella beer and small plates of tomato bread.
When did these people work?
There was a good chance they didn’t. Spain’s unemployment rate hit a modern-day record of 26.02 per cent in the final quarter of 2012 with nearly six million people looking for work.
With a number like that, Spain’s citizens could be forgiven if they abstained from saving their euros for a rainy day. Yet, amazingly, according to recent data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Spain’s household savings rate hit 13.6 per cent in 2012, up from 11.6 per cent in 2011.
By way of comparison, Canada’s savings rate in 2012 was a paltry 3.3 per cent, down from 3.8 per cent the year before. Projections for 2013 peg the number even lower: only 3 per cent, the difference between a household’s disposable income and consumption…
