Global Financial Crisis Spawned Alternative Business Opportunities

The financial crisis has caused unemployment in many countries to rise, and the global job market is bleak.

However, some of the non mainstream occupations in Spain are now stealthy.

Workers, gambling companies, lottery sales outlets, cheap mobile operators, and even shoemaker, who helped the pawnbroker to recruit customers, made a fortune by borrowing the "east wind" of the financial crisis.

You can now find such a group of people in the Merdeka Square, the capital city of Madrid, Spain.

They were walking around in cardboard or fluorescent jackets with "I buy gold", issuing leaflets to passers-by, or taking potential customers to the office of their boss to negotiate business.

These people are hired workers who help pawnshops to attract customers.

Most of them are overseas immigrants and construction workers.

Jose Bautista, a 45 year old Dominica immigrant, told Reuters reporters 10 days ago: "a company owner brought 4 Rolex watches to 18 thousand euros (US $23 thousand) a few days ago.

He did this in order to do the right thing - to pay employees.

These employees earn about 30 euros ($39) a day.

Although there is no extra commission, there are many job seekers in this industry.

The popularity of lottery tickets is also on Merdeka Square. Some people are queuing up to buy lottery tickets.

More and more Spaniards are hoping to win the lottery to stop worrying about losing their jobs.

This has led to a new record in the amount of lottery money.

Only Primitiva, a state-operated lottery company, had a turnover of 1 billion 900 million euros (US $2 billion 450 million) in the first half of this year.

Mercedes Gonzalez, an asset evaluator who queues up to buy lottery tickets, said she bought a lottery ticket with her boyfriend because it was a joke. "He said to me," if we lose our job, it doesn't matter, because we plan to win lottery. "

Isabel Gonzalez, the operator of the lottery betting station, said, "I almost sold two times the lottery."

Cheap communication has the market. The largest mobile operator in the world, Vodafone and France Telecom giant France Telecom, previously said that the company's performance in Spain is not good enough, and is affecting their global business.

In contrast, Holland telecom operator "Royal KPN Telecom" launched a new low-cost mobile phone business Blau in Spain last month.

This business market is positioning more and more unemployed people.

The company believes that mobile phones are increasingly regarded as necessities rather than luxuries.

Faced with the financial crisis, Spaniards will be more careful in reducing the cost of mobile phone calls, thus enabling cheaper communication operators to gain more market share.

The financial crisis also benefits the shoemaker.

The Reuters said that during the boom period, Spaniards usually threw out their old shoes and bought new shoes.

Many people can only tighten their belts now and look for shoemakers in their old shoes.

Yang Jing: editor in charge