Lack of job security and lower salaries than in other countries among reasons for shortfall
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Twenty years ago, after too many temporary contracts and too many hours delivering pizza to pay the rent, Joan Pons finally abandoned his dream of working as a nurse in his native Spain.
“I’d love to have been able to stay,” he says. “The problem was that I finished my nursing degree in 1997 and couldn’t find any stable jobs. There were daily contracts, or ones for a week, where they used to sack me on a Friday and hire me again the following Monday so that they didn’t have to pay me for the weekend.”
