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of vacant land with those willingto plant vegetables in them andshare the harvest.

The growth of time banks re-vives a concept pioneered by19th-century anarchists and so-cialists in the U.S. and Europe,who wanted to test their philos-ophy that prices of goods andservices should more closely re-flect the labor involved in pro-ducing them.

The number of such banks inSpain—some run by neighbor-hood associations, others by lo-cal governments—has nearlydoubled to 291 over the past twoyears, according to a survey byJulio Gisbert, a banker who runsa website called Vivir Sin Em-pleo, or Living Without Work,that tracks mutual-aid initia-tives. Some economists worrythat the rise of such informalsystems of economic exchange ispushing more of Spain’s econ-omy underground—out of theview of regulators and tax col-lectors, and effectively sendingthe country back in time devel-opmentally.

“It’s a step backward not onlyfor a euro country, but also for adeveloped country,” says JoséGarcía Montalvo, an economicsprofessor at the University ofPompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Banks and social currencies,he says, can backfire on thebroader economy since the in-come received from such ar-rangements often goes unde-clared, therefore depriving thegovernment of tax revenue. So-cial currencies and time banksalso preclude taking on debt,adds Mr. García Montalvo, whichin moderate levels can help peo-ple start businesses and accessbeneficial goods and servicesthat they can’t afford upfront.

Others, though, say the mea-sures represent a significant sta-

bilizing force in society. For“people who can’t find work,these kinds of possibilities of ex-changes and mutual help canhelp make bearable a situationthat otherwise would be unsus-tainable,” says José Luis ÁlvarezArce, director of the economicsdepartment at the University ofNavarra.

Similar efforts are alsoemerging in Southern Europe’sother troubled economies. InGreece, for example, hundreds ofpeople in one town use a cur-rency called the TEM, whichstands for a local alternativeunit. Time banks in Modena, It-aly, and elsewhere in the countryhave mobilized to help peopleaffected by earthquakes thereearlier this year. Spain’s econ-omy has been in dire shape sincea real estate bubble burst in2008. Unemployment hit a re-cord of nearly 25% in the secondquarter, and the governmentsees the economic contractioncontinuing into next year.

Meanwhile, Spain’s public-as-sistance system has been bat-tered by national and state bud-get cuts aimed at soothingfinancial markets. As joblessbenefits run out for long-termunemployed, the percentage ofout-of-work Spaniards receivingassistance has fallen to 65% from

ContinuedfromPageOne 78% in 2010. Last month, the na-tional government announcedthe most severe budget austerityplan in the country’s modernhistory.

The crisis has been an espe-cially tough blow to people intheir 20s and 30s, who came ofage in a period of democracyand prosperity following thedeath of Spanish dictator Fran-cisco Franco in 1975. They werethe first Spaniards to enjoy thefruits of a strong welfare statethat included universal healthcare, accessible higher educationand generous worker protec-tions, says Rodolfo Gutiérrez, asociologist at the University ofOviedo. They watched their par-ents’ living standards rise dra-matically, and entered the work-force in the late 1990s and early2000s, when jobs were plentifuland credit and consumer goodsreadily obtainable, he says.

Today, workers 16 to 24 facean astronomical 53.3% unem-ployment rate. For 25- to 34-year-olds, the rate is 27%. It ta-pers off for older workers, whocan be costly to lay off underSpanish labor law.

Half of the young unemployedhave been seeking work for atleast a year, according to Spain’snational statistics bureau, andthe few jobs that are availableare often low-paying, temporarypositions. The number of peoplein their 20s and early 30s wholive with their parents began totick up in the past 12 months af-ter declining for years.

“It’s not a lost generation, it’sa frustrated one,” says José Or-tuño, a 35-year-old film writerand director. He recently madean animated Web series called“Treintañeros,” or Thirtysome-things, featuring a fast-foodworker, Pedro, with four collegedegrees who represents a gener-ation “living off their parentsuntil they can afford to live offtheir children,” Mr. Ortuño says.

Amid flagging faith in effortsto shore up the euro, Spain iswitnessing a surge in local cur-rencies. “It’s increasingly hardfor anyone in my generation tohave much confidence in theeuro or the authorities control-ling it,” says Eduard Folch, 28, aWeb page designer in the Catalo-nia region. A couple of monthsago, he and some friends de-cided to launch their own cur-rency, the eco. Desperate formoney of any kind, a score ofbusinesses and two town gov-ernments in the area haveagreed to accept the eco.

Spaniards are also barteringgoods—say, books or furniture inexchange for fresh produce—atmarkets that are being orga-nized in seemingly every neigh-borhood. In the Catalonia regionalone, 60 barter markets havebeen held during the first sevenmonths of this year, three timesas many as there were during allof 2007, according to Intercan-vis.net, a website tracking thebarter economy.

A growing number of Spain’syoung people are visiting web-sites like No lo Tiro, I Won’tThrow it Out, a three-year-oldsite similar to Freecycle thatconnects people who want togive an item away with thosewho need it. About 6,000 to10,000 items a month—every-thing from automobiles tomother’s milk—change hands onthe site, whose target audienceis unemployed women in their30s, says Daniel Remeseiro, 39,the site’s founder.

“I think the model of the wel-

fare state has reached its limit,and it’s up to individual mem-bers of society to pull our chest-nuts out of the fire,” says LaiaSerrano, 38, an economist wholast September created a non-profit organization called Barce-lonActua, Barcelona Acts, whichconnects those in need with peo-ple who can donate a good orservice. Ms. Serrano says shewas moved to action duringChristmas of 2010 while listen-ing to a radio program in whichan unknown Good Samaritancalled in to invite down-on-their-luck listeners to share the holi-days at her house.

Spaniards on tight budgetsare also tapping online resourceslike Sindinero, Without Money, asite whose estimated 10,000daily readers learn tips like howto make a mosquito trap out of asoft-drink bottle, or where thereare public offices offering freeWi-Fi and air conditioning.

Of course, even the architectsof these self-help actions recog-nize that they won’t solve thefundamental problems of theeuro or bring long-term stabilityto the Spanish economy.

“We are inside of a pressurecooker, and all we can do is letsome steam off so it doesn’t ex-plode,” says Francisco Romero,head of the municipal employ-

ment office in the town Totana,which has launched an urbangardening project, a barter mar-ket and a local currency to helpits jobless youth.

Carlos Bravo, a 35-year-oldinformation technician whohelped launched a small bank incentral Madrid this year, saystime banks have a different sortof value: helping urban Span-iards rekindle a sense of close-ness among neighbors that facil-itates asking for favors andother forms of mutual assis-tance.

“They’re people you can counton,” he says. “And in this time ofeconomic crisis, for people wholack the resources to get thingson their own, they know thereare people here to give a helpinghand.”

The Valladolid Time Bank,started by the city governmentjust before the crisis started, hasattracted more and youngermembers with the crumbling ofSpain’s economy. The new unem-ployed appreciate the bank’segalitarian ethos, says 32-year-old administrator Juan ManuelPrimo. “Everyone’s hour has thesame value here,” he says: Anhour’s labor by a seamstress isworth as much as that of a law-yer. Members write one anotherinvoices for services rendered.

Every month, Mr. Primo entersthe invoice data into his com-puter to track how many hourseach member has given andtaken. He doesn’t allow imbal-ances greater than 20 hours ineither direction.

“Having a network of supportlike this is really important at atime when you’re vulnerable,”says Alessandra Melis, 30, whorecently lost her housekeepingjob after her employers werethemselves laid off. She has beenusing the bank to get rides forher errands around town, in ex-change for offering cooking les-sons and dog walking services.

When a hair stylist who be-longed to the bank had to shutdown his slumping salon notlong ago, he was able to counton meals and other necessitiesfrom members in return for cuts.

On a recent morning in thetown library, bank member Cris-tina Altable, 38, was teachingEnglish to Camila Gil, 17, whosemother pays for the lessons bydoing ironing and cleaning forother members. In return, Ms.Altable has gotten Pilatesclasses, and is now having agraphic designer in the bank jazzup her résumé.

“In this economy, the résuméhas to be perfect,” says Ms.Altable, who has been struggling

to re-enter the job market afterleaving an administrative job afew years ago to have a baby.Ms. Altable, who has degrees inEnglish and commerce, says shehopes a more polished résumédoes the trick. After repeated re-buffs, she says she’d even con-sider working at McDonald’s.

Ms. Martín, the unemployed22-year-old, says she has strug-gled to find work in the careershe studied for, caring for thephysically incapacitated, and hashad to settle for temporary jobs.She adds that it’s dispiriting see-ing her friends with degrees em-igrating or working at very me-nial jobs.

But she sees hope in projectslike the time bank and thinksthey are the wave of the future inSpain. “There has to be a changein the mentality for there to be achange in the country,” she says.“We can’t continue to spend re-sources we don’t have. We haveto learn to live with less.”

Eduard Folch, left, and Israel Calvache work in a shared garden near Barcelona. Members of the group are primarily growing food for themselves,but they also plan to sell their excess fruits and vegetables for ecos, a local currency that was created by Mr. Folch and his friends.

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Jobless in Spain Seek Solutions Through Social Currencies

Sources: Spain's National Statistics Institute; Vivir Sin Empleo The Wall Street Journal

Time on Their HandsSkyrocketing unemployment among Spain’s young workers has helpedfuel the growth of time banks and other mutual-aid organizations.

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Informal exchangesare helping those inneed but add risks forthe broader economy.

Eco Friendly>>Scan this codeto see a videoabout the Eco andother alternativecurrencies or watchonline and see

more photos at WSJ.com/PageOne.

left the company in 2010.Grockit CEO Roy Gilbert said

the practice has proven a suc-cess, and his developers “con-tinue to evangelize the method.”

If the ideal for pairing is soul-mate-level bonding, the realitycan be more like an endless badblind date. Annoyances thatplague partners everywhere canquickly pile up: from poor per-sonal hygiene and table man-ners, to feet on shared desks andloud chewing.

Sydney, Australia-based soft-ware company Atlassian spoofedthe practice on April Fools’ Daywith a mock instructional videocalled “Spooning.”

In the two-minute short,viewed by more than 100,000people, a burly engineer sits ona colleague’s lap, wraps his armsaround his partner’s waist andtypes along with him hand overhand. “Take turns,” the pre-senter says. “No one wants to bethe outer spoon all the time.”

The popularity of pair pro-gramming has its roots in the1999 book “Extreme Program-ming Explained,” written byFacebook’s Mr. Beck. Accordingto the book, software should bereleased quickly and improvedalong the way, something dou-ble-teaming projects can makehappen more quickly.

Mr. Beck developed many ofthe concepts while working withWard Cunningham—developer of

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the first wiki—at a softwarecompany in the 1980s. The rela-tionship began when Mr. Cun-ningham asked Mr. Beck to checkfor bugs in a software applica-tion he was working on. Buteventually the collaborationgrew deeper, and the two wouldpair up to knock out assign-ments so they could move on totheir own pet projects.

“When I walked in in themorning, the first thing I didwas look for Kent,” Mr. Cunning-ham says. “And at the end of theday, we were walking out to ourcars together.”

The pairing broke up whenMr. Beck left the company.

“When it stopped, it was like,‘Wait, who’s going to noticewhen I get tired or when I go off

into the weeds?’” Mr. Beck said.“‘I need someone to help mewith that.’”

The practice is now blossom-ing. Pivotal Labs, a software-de-velopment shop that was boughtby technology giant EMC Corp.in March, has its 175 engineerspair all day, every day. Someplay the field, changing partnersdaily in a practice called “pro-

miscuous pairing.”There are other flavors as

well. Ping-pong pairing involveshopping back and forth betweenpartners. Remote pairing is thecomputer world’s version of thelong-distance relationship, withprogrammers sharing the samescreen via the Internet.

San Francisco-based Squareallows developers to choosewhen and how they want to pair.The company says about 15% ofits engineers pair full time, whilehalf do it occasionally.

“There’s a joke that pairs, likefish and house guests, go rottenafter three days,” said ZachBrock, an engineering managerat Square and a former Pivotalemployee.

Working out problems with apairing partner can be a lot likeworking out problems with asignificant other.

During one recent roughpatch, Jamie Kite, a developer atDurham, N.C., software consul-tancy Relevance Inc., sat herpartner down for a talk.

“Hey, it feels like we’re driv-ing in different directions,” sherecalls saying. “I’m putting onthe gas and you’re pressing thebrake. What’s going on here?”

The two went to a whiteboardto draw out their competing so-lutions. They eventually reacheda compromise, said her partner,Jon Distad.

“It’s like any relationship,”Ms. Kite said. “If you don’t talk

about the problems, it’s not go-ing to work.”

When those timeouts don’tsolve the problem, partners atRelevance can turn to on-staffcoaches who can help with coun-seling. “People who have beenpairing a while, they’ll start act-ing like old married couples,”said Marc Phillips, one of thecompany’s coaches.

People can be as much of achallenge as writing software.Bryan Kocol, chief technology of-ficer at San Diego software con-sultant Drive Current, says oneengineer at the company had ahabit of talking through codingproblems out loud. “Some peo-ple have idiosyncrasies like talk-ing to themselves and that candrive the other person nuts,” Mr.Kocol said.

Jon St. John, a software de-veloper at Drive Current, sayswhen he was paired with moreexperienced programmers, itcould sometimes feel like theother person was pushy or notgiving him a chance to finish histhoughts or develop his ownideas. He says more junior part-ners probably had the sameproblem with him.

After two years of asking thecompany’s engineers to spendthree hours a day pairing, Mr.Kocol phased out the practice inSeptember.

“I don’t think anyone missesit tremendously,” Mr. St. Johnsaid.

Programmer ‘Pairing’ Brings Tech Couples Close Together

Software developer Pivotal Labs pairs its engineers, including Cameron Cundiff and Sabrina Staedt, all day.

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