The harsh reality facing Spain's lost generation has been painfully showcased after an online rant by a young Spaniard with three degrees went viral.
Benjamin Serra Bosch, 25, has become a symbol of his home-country's toxic unemployment situation after he posted a message about his plight as an overqualified youth unable to find a decent job in Spain.
Benjamin Serra Bosch has three degrees, but he's been forced to leave his country to work cleaning toilets
Bosch's Facebook post revealed that despite having three degrees, including a Master's Degree from the IEBS Business School in Barcelona, he was forced to leave Spain and move to the U.K. to look for work.
Now Bosch is living in London, cleaning toilets for a living.
"I received a distinction for both my degrees and now I clean S*** in a foreign country," he wrote in a message posted on Facebook and Twitter.
"I've been working in a well known café chain in London since May. And after five months working there, today for the first time I saw it clearly.
"I clean toilets. My thought was 'I received distinction in my two degrees and I clean other peoples s*** in a country that isn't my own.' Well, I also make coffees, wipe tables and wash up cups."
"I'm not ashamed of what I do. Cleaning is a very worthy job, What embarrasses me is having to do it because no one has given me an opportunity in Spain. There are many Spaniards like me especially in London."
Registered unemployment rose by 25,572 people in September, up 0.54% over the month of August, leaving the total number of 4,724,355 unemployed people, according to data released by the Ministry of Employment.
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), last year 56,392 people of Spanish nationality left Spain, double the figure in 2007 when the crisis began (28,091).
Between 2008 and the end of 2012, a total of 390 206 Spanish left the country seeking work.
Bloomberg reported earlier this year that the number of Spanish people registered to work in the U.K. had doubled since 2009-2010, with many highly educated young men and women forced to take jobs in fast food restaurants and other low-paying positions.
"We are a plague," Bosch said. "And make no mistake, the youth are not here to learn the language, having an adventure and new experiences. We are IMMIGRANTS.
"I thought I deserved better after so much effort in my academic life. Apparently I was wrong."
Mr Serra's frustrations went viral on social networks, with thousands of young Spanish workers speaking out in solidarity.
In an interview with El Huffington Post, Mr Serra called on Spain's politicians to "get their act together because I am an example of what is happening to many young Spaniards."
"Sometimes I want to shove my qualifications in the face of those customers who look down on me," he added.
"It seems that all my certificates aren't worth the s*** I clean from the toilets."