25th Jun 2020 @ 9:24 am

Lanzarote islanders are most worried about housing, unemployment and health, according to the results of  a new survey of public attitudes issued by the Cabildo’s statistics departments, which was presented by Education and Citizen’s Participation councillor Paula Corujo yesterday.

The Survey of Island Topics has been carried out every year or two since 1990 (although the last one was conducted three years ago), and is intended to provide a representative snapshot of social concerns and opinions on the island.

35% of respondents said that the economic situation On Lanzarote was “good” while 27% said it was bad. This contrasts strongly with recent results of a similar study in Spain as a whole, where only 6% of respondents said the economy was good.

In response to the question “which problem on the island needs a solution most urgently?” , the highest scoring answers were unemployment (21%), housing (20%) and health (17%). The environment only scored 4% on this part of the survey.

Nevertheless, the percentage of people worried about unemployment is almost half that of previous surveys, while housing has shown a huge rise. The amount of respondents worried about public transport and waste disposal is also twice as high as in any previous survey.

It should be pointed out that this year’s survey took place before the coronavirus crisis, and it is almost certain that concerns about issues such as unemployment, health and tourism will have increased since then.

Workers’ rights “not respected”

A huge 76% of respondents said that workers’ rights were little-respected or not respected on Lanzarote, while only 21% thought they were well respected. Agriculture and bars/restaurants were chosen as the sectors that least respected workers’ right.

While only 3% of respondents mentioned corruption as a problem spontaneously, 74% agreed that it was “very widespread” or “fairly widespread” on the island , with only 1% denying that it existed.

The survey is based on 617 interviews carried out between mid-January and February this year. on subjects over the age of 18 resident on Lanzarote