GUISSONA: Inside a cavernous production plant in Spain, people from 62 nationalities work side by side to keep a food company humming as millions of legs of ham travel on hooks along conveyor belts.
Foreign workers have helped to make Spain’s economy the envy of the industrialized world, even as anti-immigration sentiments grow elsewhere in Europe and in the United States.
“BonÀrea would not be possible if it weren’t for the people from other countries who have come here to work. We should be eternally grateful to them,” the company’s head of human resources, Xavier Moreno, told The Associated Press during a recent visit.
Tapping into foreign labor helped Spain’s economy grow by about 3 percent last year, smashing the euro zone average of 0.8 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
That also beat the US growth rate of 2.8 percent, according to OECD projected figures, where President Donald Trump has pledged to close borders and deport immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Spain’s ministry for social security and migration says 45 percent of all jobs created since 2022 have been filled by around half a million new foreign-born workers. Nearly 3 million foreigners now represent 13 percent of the country’s workforce.
“We had two ways to deal with the challenge,” the minister, Elma Saiz, told the AP. “That Spain be a closed and poor country or an open and prosperous one.”
Pedro Aznar, professor of economics with the Esade Business School in Barcelona, said the influx of foreign workers has helped Spain fare far better than Germany, the traditional motor of Europe’s economy, whose manufacturing industry is in crisis.
Spain is driven by services, in particular its buoyant tourism sector. Foreigners do typically lower-wage jobs that many Spaniards don’t want. And while Spain takes in fewer asylum-seekers than other European countries, it’s in the rare position to attract millions of economic migrants from South America who swiftly incorporate into Spain’s job market and social fabric thanks to the common language.
Practically all of Spain’s population growth since the COVID-19 pandemic is due to immigration, with 1.1 million people arriving in 2022, according to the Bank of Spain. It credits the newcomers with sustaining the aging country’s social security system — a challenge common in other European nations.
The bank said 85 percent of the 433,000 people who found a job last year between January and September were foreign-born.
Bucking the anti-migration trend
Across Europe, the rise of anti-migrant sentiment has spurred far-right political parties. Spain also has seen the rise of anti-migration political forces that focus on unauthorized migration from Africa and Islamic countries, but they haven’t been able to impose their narrative as deeply.
Mohamed Es-Saile, 38, arrived from Morocco illegally when he was 16, crossing into Spain’s north African exclave of Ceuta. He now works legally as an electrician and repairman at bonÀrea.
“I don’t feel any hate toward migrants here,” Es-Saile said. “From my point of view, a person (from abroad) can adapt to situations in a new country, even sometimes better than people from that country.”
Latin Americans have made up the bulk of immigrants who arrived legally. According to the most recent census, over 4 million Latin American immigrants were living in Spain legally in 2023.
Víctor Razuri was brought over by bonÀrea from Peru last year as a mechanic and electrician. The 41-year-old said he has had little problem adapting.
“In Peru, you don’t see many people from other parts of the world. When I got here, I was working with people from Ukraine, from Morocco, and with a few other people from Latin America,” he said. “It was a little tough at first, but I think I have adapted.”
To help integrate newcomers, bonÀrea offers classes in Spanish and Catalan, help with work permits, and finding homes and schools. Representatives of workers from different countries meet regularly to discuss issues related to cultural differences.
‘Our future prosperity’
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has defended legal migration, drawing attention to its economic benefits. Spain added an estimated 458,000 authorized immigrants last year, according to the National Statistics Institute.
While 31 percent come from other EU countries, leading countries of origin also include Morocco, Colombia, Venezuela, China, Peru and Ukraine.
New arrivals often take service jobs, construction, farming, fishing and home care and cleaning.
“Welcoming those who come here looking for a better life is not just an obligation, it is also an essential step to guaranteeing our future prosperity,” Sánchez told Parliament in October.
An aging Spain requires workers
Social changes in Spain have opened the job market for newcomers without creating dramatic social tensions, despite chronic high unemployment at 10.6 percent.
The Bank of Spain estimates that an aging Spain will need 30 million working-age immigrants over the next 30 years to sustain the balance between workers and retirees-plus-children.
In Barcelona, cafe owner Jordi Ortiz said there is no way he could keep his business going without his staff of mostly South Americans.
“It is basically 80 percent of people from abroad, 20 percent from here,” Ortiz said. “Spaniards just don’t want to work in the service sector.”
Emily Soto, originally from the Dominican Republic, serves tables at the cafe. She and her family emigrated in 1998. Since then, things have changed.
“When I got here there was nobody else from my country, I mean we could count them on our fingers,” Soto said. “But now they just keep coming.”
Contractor Víctor Lisbona in Barcelona said fellow Spaniards no longer follow in their parents’ footsteps, and estimates that around 80 percent of the carpenters, electricians and construction professionals he has worked with are foreigners.
“Young Spaniards don’t want to do the hard jobs, the construction work, driving trucks, carpentry. They want to study to be lawyers, doctors,” Lisbona said.
New work permits for migrants
Spain has struggled with unauthorized migration across the Mediterranean Sea and has backed European Union deals with Morocco to try to stem flows. Meanwhile, the stream of migrant boats journeying from Africa’s west coast to Spain’s Canary Islands has created a humanitarian crisis. Countless die in the attempt.
Sánchez toured Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia last year to promote a temporary work scheme whereby African workers could get legal and safe passage to Spain. Results have yet to be seen.
The government also aims to bring unauthorized migrants already in Spain into the system.
In November, Sánchez’s left-wing coalition announced it would provide work permits and papers to some 900,000 foreigners already in the country illegally over the coming three years, with hopes they will work and pay taxes.
BonÀrea will be waiting to give them jobs, Moreno with human resources said, with some 700 posts likely available.