{"id":150859,"date":"2024-10-09T23:21:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T23:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/spain-looks-to-immigrants-to-drive-economy\/"},"modified":"2024-10-09T23:21:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T23:21:05","slug":"spain-looks-to-immigrants-to-drive-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/spain-looks-to-immigrants-to-drive-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain looks to immigrants to drive economy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Asylum seekers such as these can find work in Spain six months after they have arrived<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A group of Sub-Saharan African men are playing bingo in a conference room of a hotel near the northern Spanish city of Le\u00f3n.<\/b><\/p>\n

They laugh and celebrate when their numbers are called out, but many of these asylum seekers have harrowing stories.<\/p>\n

Among them is Michael, who fled Ghana to escape a violent feud that saw his sister and father killed. After travelling by land to Morocco, he paid a trafficker who put him on an inflatable boat crammed with people which took him to the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so happy, because I knew all my troubles, and the people trying to kill me, were behind me,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause once you are in Spain you are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Ghana he worked as a petrol pump attendant and a storekeeper. He also started studying human resource management, which he hopes to be able to continue in Spain once he has settled.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpain is one of the most respected countries in the world,\u201d he says. \u201cBeing here is an opportunity for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Migrants and refugees who try to take small boats to Spain often have to be rescued<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Around 170 asylum seekers are staying in this hotel, in the town of Villaquilambre, which has been converted into a migrant centre.<\/p>\n

They are among the many thousands of people who take the maritime route between the African coast and Spain each year.<\/p>\n

So far this year, more than 42,000 undocumented migrants<\/a> have arrived in Spain, an increase of 59% on 2023, the vast majority having undertaken the perilous crossing to the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n

The archipelago\u2019s difficulties in managing these large numbers have contributed to a fierce political debate about immigration, mirroring that in many other European countries. In Spain the controversy is driven in great part by the far-right Vox party, which frequently describes the trend as an \u201cinvasion\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the arrivals have also underlined a major potential source of manpower for an economy which faces stiff demographic challenges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Javier D\u00edaz-Gim\u00e9nez, a professor of economics at the IESE business school and an expert in pensions, says that a baby boom which lasted from the mid-50 to the late-70s has created a generation of Spaniards who are heading for pension age, and the \u201cbaby crash\u201d that followed means there are not enough workers to replace them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next 20 years are going to be critical, because more and more people are going to retire,\u201d he says. \u201cAccording to the most recent demographic scenario, 14.1 million people will retire during that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

One way of tackling the workforce deficit, he says, is to ape the kind of economic model implemented by Japan, which has a similarly low birth rate, by investing heavily in algorithms and machines. The obvious alternative to that is immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to grow GDP, if you want to pay pensions for all the retiring baby boomers, you need to grow GDP in a different way to how we\u2019re growing it now, because there will not be as many people, unless we bring them in through immigration,\u201d adds Prof D\u00edaz-Gim\u00e9nez.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Spain has an aging population<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Spain\u2019s central bank has put a figure on the projected labour shortfall. In a report published in April, it said that the country will need around 25 million immigrants <\/a>over the next 30 years.<\/p>\n

The left-wing Spanish government has also made the economic case for immigrants, with Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez describing them as representing \u201cwealth, development and prosperity\u201d for his country, while on a recent tour of Mauritania, Gambia and Senegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contribution of migrant workers to our economy is fundamental, as is the sustainability of our social security system and pensions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr S\u00e1nchez\u2019s coalition is hoping that a proposal to legalise the status of up to 500,000 undocumented migrants, mainly from Latin America, will get through parliament. Spain has seen nine such mass regularisations in its democratic era, most recently in 2005 under a previous government led by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.<\/p>\n

However, the country\u2019s economic needs contrast with ordinary Spaniards\u2019 perception of immigration. A new poll shows that 41% of people are \u201cvery worried”<\/a> by the phenomenon, making it their fifth-biggest concern after inflation, housing, inequality and unemployment.<\/p>\n

While only 9% of Spaniards associate immigrants with economic progress, 30% link them to insecurity, and 57% believe that there are too many of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Villaquilambre, meanwhile, is an example of how undocumented new arrivals can integrate into the workforce.<\/p>\n

The asylum seekers here are allowed to work six months after their arrival in Spain.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore they receive the authorisation to start working we place great emphasis on them learning Spanish, as well as offering them training courses and classes on risk avoidance,\u201d says Dolores Queiro, of the San Juan de Dios Foundation, the non-governmental organisation that manages the migrant centre in Villaquilambre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the date for them being able to start working approaches we get in touch with different companies \u2013 and they contact us as well \u2013 and we start looking for jobs for them.”<\/p>\n

Companies get in touch, she says, \u201cbecause they know that we have people here who want to work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Migrant<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Makan, from Mali, now works for a local Spanish business<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Makan, from Mali, has just started working for a local business, GraMaLeon, which makes walls, bathrooms and kitchen counters out of marble and granite. He commutes the short distance from the hotel to the factory each day on an electric scooter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to be working,\u201d he says, in halting Spanish, after completing a shift hauling slabs of marble around the factory.<\/p>\n

Ramiro Rodr\u00edguez Alaez, co-owner of the business, which employs around 20 people, says that finding workers is not easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a lot of manpower in this profession. But it\u2019s tough, it gets cold, you have to lift heavy weight, so it\u2019s not a job that many young people here want to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of companies in this industry around here, but those that do exist all need people. We\u2019re all looking for people locally and we can\u2019t find them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cImmigrants provide an important source of manpower for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Read more global business and tech stories<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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BBC Asylum seekers such as these can find work in Spain six months after they have arrived A group of Sub-Saharan African men are playing bingo in a conference room of a hotel near the northern Spanish city of Le\u00f3n. They laugh and celebrate when their numbers are called out, but many of these asylum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[4199,1933,18876,11843],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150861,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150859\/revisions\/150861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}