As official figures reveal that Spain's unemployment went from bad to worse in September, one young Spaniard's story of struggling to get work in his home country has gone viral.
Benjamin Serra Bosch vented his anger online last Friday about his failed efforts to find work in Spain, and subsequent employment at a "famous coffee chain" in London. He wrote that as well as making coffee and cleaning tables – he also cleaned toilets.
"My name is Benjamin Serra, I have two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree and I clean toilets," he posted on Facebook and Twitter. "No, it is not a joke."
(Read more: Why hopes of Spain's recovery may be 'too optimistic')
But the 25-year-old - dubbed "the voice of a country's lost generation" by the press – insisted he was not ashamed about doing the "decent" job.
"What embarrasses me is having to do so because no one has given me an opportunity in Spain," he wrote. "There are many Spaniards here… And let's not kid ourselves. We are not young people on an adventure to learn the language and live new experiences. We are immigrants."
The post, which has been retweeted over 27,000 times, ended with the line: "I thought that I deserved something better after so much effort in my academic life. It seems that I was wrong."
(Read more: Spain's economy contracts again but could reverse trend)
It comes as official figures released on Wednesday showed that the number of unemployed people in Spain by 0.5 percent in September, from a month earlier – the first increase in seven months. The rise took the country's jobless rate to 4.7 million, according to the Labour Ministry's figures.
Separate, quarterly figures from the National Statistics Institute showed that unemployment was at 26.3 percent in the second three months of the year.
Meanwhile the number of young people (under 25) out of work also increased in September, by 28,590 or 7 percent. Latest figures from Eurostat, the EU's data service, show that virtually every other Spaniard aged under 25 is out of work.
(Read more: Euro zone in it for the 'long haul' as unemployment flat)
The latest unemployment figures raise questions about the entrenchment of Spain's economic recovery.
A string of upbeat economic indicators over the summer had boosted hopes that the country – the euro zone's fourth largest economy – was starting to bounce back. However, its output shrunk at a much slower rate - by 0.1 percent, quarter-on-quarter – in the second three months of the year, following a 0.5 percent contraction in the first quarter.
— By CNBC's Katrina Bishop. Follow her on Twitter @KatrinaBishop