While the European economic recovery was dealt another blow today with the news that quantitative easing will continue to September 2016, a Spanish pensioner has taken drastic measures in an effort to secure a job for his son.

In a country with a 22.4% unemployment rate, the second highest in the EU after Greece, a former lawyer is offering a bounty to ensure his 39-year-old son gets a job. Posted in the El Heraldo de Aragón newspaper, a 25-word advert is offering any employer a sum of €5,000 if he or she will take on his son.

"Pensioner offering €5,000 to company that employs his unemployed son," the advert reads.

The advert offering the sum of money to employers

The pensioner assures potential employers that his son is “qualified, responsible, and hard-working,” and that he has a “good professional record.”

"My son is desperate," the man told the newspaper, "as a father I cannot watch him in pain and stand by and do nothing."

"Perhaps publishing this kind of advert seems improper but over time I have lost any shame," he said.

The pensioner's son has worked in several companies over the years in administrative and IT positions, but has been struggling to find work for some months in his hometown of Huesca. His father is lending a hand to help tide him over, but is aware that he "won’t be here forever."

The pensioner says that he has received more than 20 calls since posting the advert, and that his son, who was unaware that he intended to do so, was furious with his father for posting it.