recruiting

We thought that the rearmament of Europe was about recruiting soldiers. In reality what Defense needs are welders

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After the excesses of the Trump Administration in matters of international politics, Europe and, especially Spainhas decided recover your industry of armaments, allocating millions to its rearmament policy. He Rearm Europe Planendowed with 800,000 million euros, has skyrocketed orders to the Spanish defense industry. However, although money is already flowing to manufacturers and orders accumulateproduction chains cannot be accelerated if there are not enough technicians to operate the machinery. The defense sector has been trying to fill vacancies without achieving it, and the problem is getting worse. The hope for this rearmament comes from the hand of the Vocational Training as a quarry for the new talent that the main companies in the sector are already raffling off. A new labor market. The rearmament of Europe is changing the labor market in Spain, and it is doing so faster than many imagined. Defense companies have been looking for technicians for months without finding them, and the problem is not going to be solved only with university engineers. According to the report ‘Metal in Figures’ published by the Spanish Confederation of Metal Business Organizations (Confemetal), the average affiliation to Social Security in the sector reached 828,446 people in January 2026, which represents an interannual increase of 1.2%. The average affiliation during 2025 stood at 826,061 workers, 1.6% more than the previous year. These data outline a rising sector that still does not reflect the impact of the European rearmament plan. European rearmament triggers demand for technicians. According to data of the Spanish Association of Defense, Security, Aeronautics and Space Technology Companies (Tedae), the Spanish defense industry It is made up of about 580 companies and generates around 75,100 direct jobs, with Madrid, Andalusia and the Basque Country concentrating close to 80% of national turnover. All companies in the sector share the same problem: there are not enough technicians to cover their production lines and qualified professionals already have a job in one of them. For those who have put the view of recent graduates of Vocational Training, and in improving the conditions for young people to acquire the training that they will then put into practice in the defense industry. Currently, large companies in the sector they already count with a high percentage of staff coming from FP, exceeding 30% and in some cases even more than half of its workers. ​The profiles most sought after by the sector. The Metal Foundation for Training, made up of Confemetal, CCOO Industria and UGT FICA, participated in the Aula 2026 fair identifying the two FP degrees that concentrate the greatest demand: Senior Technician in Electrotechnical and Automated Systems and Machining Technician. The first deals with the installation, programming and maintenance of electrical and control systems on land, naval and industrial platforms, while the second is key in the manufacturing of precision components for armored vehicles, weapons systems and drones. ​These degrees already train young people every year, but the problem is that there are not enough students choosing them, despite the demand of the sector. Héctor Aguirre, managing coordinator of the Metal Foundation for Training, explained this disconnection: “Young people do not associate certain sectors with the metal industry, such as defense or space, when in reality they are cutting-edge fields where they work with cutting-edge technology.” ​More than 350,000 jobs and competitive working conditions. Beyond the segment dedicated to the defense industry, the problem of the shortage of qualified labor extends to the entire metal industry, which includes automotive, steel, aeronautics and machinery manufacturing. According to Confemetal, companies will need fill more than 350,000 positions of work in the coming years, a figure that turns the technical talent gap into one of Spain’s main industrial challenges for the next decade. The salary conditions of the sector are a solid argument to attract candidates. The average salary of a metal worker exceeds 2,000 euros net per month, with salary review clauses linked to the CPI. In 2025, contract salaries grew by an average of 2.6%, and the sector’s collective agreements also include life insurance, disability coverage and retirement benefits. These are conditions that young people do not yet associate with making a component for a submarinean armored vehicle or an anti-aircraft defense system, but they are there, waiting for those who choose that professional career. In Xataka | The talent shortage has become chronic to an extreme point: 75% of companies cannot find what they are looking for Image | Flickr (copsadmirer@yahoo.es), Unsplash (Jimmy Nilsson Masth)

The US has cut programs for research and science. Europe and Spain are recruiting their scientists

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The Trump Administration has cut substantially the funds allocated to finance universities and, with them, the research projects that were being carried out, as as they point out from Nature. So American scientists have had no choice but to look for solutions to the draconian cuts in their country. Europe in general, and Spain in particular, they have become a magnet unexpected for all that talent, with programs that promise stability and million-dollar resources. Talent drain. According to information from the Ministry of Science, the call for the ATRAE program, aimed at incorporating researchers of international prestige with experience abroad in Spanish R&D centers, received 254 applications for the 2025 call. This implies an increase of 32% in applications, marking a historical record, because in 2023 no applications arrived from that country and in 2024 they only accounted for 16% of the total. 33.5% of them came from scientists from the US, which represents more than double that of previous editions. Finally, the scholarship program has selected 37 researchers in a program that allocates 38.9 million euros. Of the selected researchers, 56.7% come from American institutions and universities. Scientists who choose Spain. The Country collected the reasons why some of these researchers had decided to leave the US to continue their work in Spain. Vincenzo Calvanese, a 43-year-old Italian researcher who works at the Josep Carreras Institute in Barcelona after a decade in the United States, says that “many of my colleagues are having a very difficult time because of the political and economic events that affect science.” He encourages other colleagues to follow in his footsteps in Spain or other countries in Europesince the program represents “one of the few opportunities to ensure the future of research and some professional security.” ​Audrey Sawyer, a 43-year-old American hydrogeologist who has joined the research team at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, expresses a similar concern: “I have never seen a situation like this in the US. I feel very bad for the researchers and students, they are very talented and are facing serious challenges.” Although she applied before the most recent cuts, she clearly sees how federal funding affects areas like biomedicine and climate change. Europe: a troubled river gains fishermen. According to a survey made by Nature Among the US scientific community, 75% of researchers have seriously contemplated emigrating due to the cuts and layoffs promoted by Trump. In this scenario of uncertainty, Europe fights back taking out the nets to try to attract a good part of that talent dissatisfied with cuts in US research. The EU has doubled the funding of the European Research Council (ERC) with 500 million euros to provide it with more resources for these new researchers under the umbrella of the program Europe horizon. Spain distributes the incorporation of these new researchers in a balanced way: Catalonia receives 35.1% of the funding provided by these new scholarships, Madrid receives 29.7%, and entities such as the CSIC host 29.7% of the researchers. In this way, local research is reinforced with international talent, new students are trained and more funds are attracted from international competitions. The exodus is not only about science. The desire to leave the US does not only occur in the scientific field, some EU countries have doubled the number of residency applications and citizenship of US citizens. It is the case of Irelandwhich went from receiving 31,825 in all of 2024, to 3,692 applications during the month of February 2025 alone. Europe’s response to those requests has been different, tightening requirements to obtain residency or, as in the case of Spain, eliminating the “Golden Visa“which granted a residence permit in exchange of an economic investment. In Xataka | Of course digital nomads love Oviedo. It’s not because of the way of life: it’s because they charge 90,000 euros Image | Wikipedia, Unsplash (National Cancer Institute)

Ukraine has unlocked a wild “online mode.” The one about Russia recruiting Africans on Discord to turn them into “can openers”

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The Ukrainian War I had already flirted with the language of the gamer world: rewards for objectives, loot lists and even a “military Amazon” improvised to redeem successes by real material. But if that seemed like a way to gamify logisticswhat is happening now goes up a level: it is no longer about buying drones with points, but about recruiting soldiers within the player communities themselves and turning them into human bombs. War as a global industry. On the Ukrainian front, Russia has ended up building a collection machinery that is not limited to looking for soldiers, but drags them from places increasingly unlikelyas if the war had become a global funnel. What was once a conflict between armies begins to look like a international recruitment network where young people enter, attracted by money, by a promise of the future or simply by a casual conversation that becomes irreversible. The result is a constant drip of foreigners who arrive in Russia, sign a paper, receive rushed training and disappear into the most brutal landscape of Europe, where the distance between signing a contract and death can be measured in weeks. Recruitment on a screen. The story Bloomberg told and starts with two young South Africans, regular Discord users and Arma 3 players, who end up talking about enlist in the Russian army with someone who identifies himself as @Dash. What seems like just another exchange in a digital community rises in temperature until it becomes a real plan: they meet in Cape Town, move together and end up visiting the Russian consulate, as if this bureaucratic step gave legitimacy to what, deep down, is already a flight towards war. On July 29, they embark on a trip to Russia via the United Arab Emirates and, after arriving, they meet “Dash” there. Shortly after, in early September, they sign one-year military contracts near St. Petersburg and they are trapped in the fast lane of a conflict that doesn’t stop to check if anyone really understands what they’re getting into. Contract, training and front. Only a few weeks pass between the signing and the front. After a brief period of basic training, one of the two is sent to combat in Ukraine, where he performs duties as an assistant marksman for a grenade launcher, a description that sounds like a military routine but is, in reality, the prelude of a disappearance. The last time he contacted his family was October 6. On December 17, a friend reported that has died in combat. The confirmation comes with a medical document that his family later obtained, dated months later, which states that he died on October 23, 2024 in Verkhnekamenskoye, in the Luhansk region. Nothing is known about the other young man: his whereabouts remain up in the air, as happens with many names who enter the war and get lost in the noise of the front. The scandal that breaks out at home. In South Africa, the case is not only read as a personal tragedy, but as a national problem, because since 1998 It is illegal to fight for or assist the armed forces of a foreign country. And it also arrives at a moment especially sensitive: More allegations of recruiting towards Russia have emerged in recent weeks, with investigations pointing to to catchment networks already told stories with acceptable costumes (escort courses, security training) that become suspicious when they lead to military contracts. This climate of public alarm worsens with arrests and judicial processeswhile the South African authorities, the Russian consulate and the platform itself appear wrapped in silence without clear answers and with families trying to piece together, through emails and calls, the map of a disappearance. The lie. Explained the medium that among the incentives that are put on the table appear always the same: money, attractive conditions, the possibility of obtaining Russian citizenship and the idea that the service could open educational or advancement doors. It is an offer designed to ring concrete and reasonableas if combat were hard but passable work, a dangerous but temporary experience. However, the story makes clear What happens when that promise lands in Ukraine: war is not a contract, it is rather a crusher, and for those who arrive without roots, a support network or the ability to get out of the wheel, destiny is reduced to a date on a piece of paper and a lost location in the east of the country. Kamikaze bodies. At another point in the same conflict appears a scene that has gone viral on networks, a video even more brutal: an African mercenary is “armed” with a TM-62 anti-tank mine attached to the body and sent towards Ukrainian positions with the intention of blowing himself up to open a bunker. The video shows crudeness without metaphors: the man protests, but a Russian soldier threatens him with a rifle, pushes him, expels him from a basement and orders him to run into the forest. in that language They call it a “can opener.”as if it were a piece of engineering, an instrument designed to break a door at the cost of disappearing, and the scene remains recorded for what it reveals: not only are foreigners recruited, they are used in missions where life is not a value to be protected, but rather the closest thing to a detonator available. Foreigners in war. Ukraine maintains that there are at least 1,436 citizens from 36 countries identified fighting in the Russian ranks, and that the real number may be higher. There is talk, again, of recruitment by financial promises, deception or pressureand warns of minimal survival: many do not survive more than a month after arriving at the front. The statement, however harsh it may be, fits with the landscape they draw these stories: people who enter through lateral routes, who arrive attracted by incentives or trapped by intermediaries, and who end up absorbed by a war that has been devouring troops until making replenishment a constant … Read more

A video game is recruiting the brightest minds of Russia for war. The problem is that they still go to school

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Russia gave a blow this week revealing a video of a few minutes. In it, the interior of what they have called as “the largest secret factory of combat drones on the planet”, located at some point in Alabuga, in the Tartaristan region, was prisoned. The piece showed us a huge army of drones with their workers assembling the pieces. However, there was something else: most were not adults, They were teenagers. A video game and a war. History is part of an investigation and exclusive to Russian media in exile The Insider. Apparently, since the summer of 2022, under the appearance of an educational and entertainment platform called Berloga (“Bear Dirridge”), Russia has been recruiting hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in a progressive technical-military training system focused on the development and use of drones, camouflaged after video gamescompetitions and programs with academic incentives. The game, approved Personally by Putin And symbolically presented in the busy city of Sebastopol, introduces children into a children’s narrative in which “smart bears” They defend The vital resource of “bees” insects, a barely concealed allegory where bears are Russia and Ukrainian bees. From the first levels of the game to participation in face -to -face competitions and the physical assembly of drones, children are guided along a route designed to transform them In technicians and operators useful for the Russian military complex, all while assures them that “they should not say that it is for war.” From command to the welder. Berloga is not an isolated initiative, but the entrance door to a broader educational network built by the so -called agency for Kremlin strategic initiatives, in which They converge NTI Technology Clubs, the TALANT student achievement monitoring platform and the national archipelago intensive. These programs are connected to each other through competitions As great challengesin which thousands of students work in solutions to “technological” problems (which often have undercover military purposes) proposed by companies associated with the Russian State. Screen capture of the concept of a superpesado launch vehicle with a water -based launch system from the “Large Challenges” program Privileged minds to war. He counted the medium That the students who stand out are rewarded with extra points in the national exam, presidential scholarships and direct entries in companies in the defense sector, such as Geoscan, Yakovlev or Almaz-Agent. The tasks presented to them range from the Improvement of the navigationN from UAVS to the design of unmanned vehicles launched from floating platforms, through automated drone detection systems and laser loaders for tactical use. Although J is requiredUstify the projects As if they were for civil use, the students themselves admit That it is a formality: the real objective is military. Children engineers. Adolescents who participate in these training skills and networks not only program or design prototypes, but some (related to research for themselves) They train soldiersthey set up FPV drones and work to undercover military laboratories in exchange for contracts by work with the consent of their parents. The components they use in the contests are the same as they then use in the operational versions of their creations. In other words, knowledge flows directly to the front. Dual technology. In one of the cases, a young man named Stas developed a kamikaze drone low cost to replace current models of the Russian army whose price exceeds $ 10,000 per unit. Another, Vladislav, collaborated with a state company for Test war teams electronics about its own air platform. Companies, Like Geoscan or Yakovlev, segment their operations between civil and military branches, a common practice that allows maintaining the legality facade against international sanctions. This structure of “dual technologies” is held by officials such as Vice Minister of Commerce Vasili Shpak, who argues that there is no longer a clear distinction Between the civil and the military. The official narrative line points to a future in which all technological innovation will be automatically usable for the war conflict. A photo of the Official Telegram Channel of Zarnitssa 2.0 Child Military Training Child involvement in these programs goes beyond technical learning. Here it seems Intensive archipelagowhich in its beginnings covered various sectors, and has been reconverted in an almost exclusively drone course. Includes exercises like Recognition, electronic evasion, drone launch from land stations or search for objectives with thermal cameras. In parallel, Berloga allied in 2024 with Zarnitssa 2.0the modern version of a Soviet military game. The program, financed with millions From rubles of the state budget, he has trained tens of thousands of schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 21 In the use of weapons Compressed air, Wannera-47 rifles massers, drones flight and choice of military specialties such as Zapador, UAV operator or political instructor. Discrepancies. Some schools are They have complained that both students and teachers have been forced to participate. Zarnitsa It is managed For the Yunarmiya Youth Movement (Young Army), linked to the Ministry of Defense and that in 2025 will receive More than one billion of rubles in subsidies. For the Russian authorities, the objective It seems clear: Detect military talent from an early age and channel it to the defense industry. War pedagogy. There is much more, since research emphasizes that this mass and silent recruitment of minors for war purposes is being institutionalized with Explicit support of the Kremlin. Putin has ordered drone competitions for children since the age of 7, and new school subjects Centering national security include training with UAVs. The official goal is to achieve “technological sovereignty” by 2030, and today’s adolescents are expected to become the military operators of tomorrow. Officials such as the Deputy Minister of Education Dmitry Afanasyev defend The formation of children in military technology under the pretext that “there are no purely civil applications.” In His wordseven a agricultural drone operator You must have combat competitions, as in China. Thus, Russia is institutionalizing a war pedagogy where the child ceases to be a citizen in training and becomes an anticipated military resource. Rights of the … Read more

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