Spain exceeds three million foreign national insurance contributors for the first time

For the first time, the Social Security has surpassed the 3 million average number of foreign contributors, reaching 3,070,831 in the month of May, after an increase of 73,524 compared to April and 187,864 compared to a year earlier. After adjusting for seasonality and the calendar effect, the figure is also close to three million employed and reaches 2,972,086.

Foreign workers therefore account for 14.1% of the total number of contributors to the system, in both series.

Since the 2022 labour reform, the weight of the foreign population in our labour market has grown notably: 41% of the employment created in the last three years corresponds to workers of foreign origin.

There are 1.4 million more foreign contributors than ten years ago, in 2015, an increase of 84.6%, and 118% in the case of people from non-EU countries. Growth among EU citizens was also significant, at 56.5%.

"The contributions of foreigners also shows the good signs that we see in the labour market as a whole: temporary employment falls to historic lows and the sectors that are growing above average, such as those with high added value, are diversifying," explains Minister Elma Saiz.

Among the activities that have experienced above-average growth in foreign contributors since 2018 in the system as a whole, Information and Communications stands out, in addition to Construction, Transport and Hotels and Restaurants.

General scheme

In line with the situation of native workers, 84% of foreign contributors were included in the General Social Security Scheme, reaching 2,580,639 workers.

Over the last 12 months, the number of foreign contributors in this scheme has grown by around 6.8%, and in seven sectors in particular: Transport and Storage (25.4%), Water Supply (10.5%), Administrative Activities (9%), Financial Activities (8.9%), Construction (8.6%) and Manufacturing (8.6%).

The distribution by sector in both the General Scheme and the Self-Employed Workers' Scheme shows an increasing diversification. For example, the year-on-year growth of foreign contributors is very remarkable in high value-added activities, where notable growth is observed, as mentioned above, in Financial Activities (8.9%), Scientific and Technical Professional Activities (7%) and Information and Communications (5.7%).

A total of 31% are workers from EU countries. Of all the nationalities, Morocco heads the list of countries with the highest number of contributors, followed by Romania, Colombia, Italy, Venezuela and China.

Of the total number of contributors from other countries, 1.7 million are men and 1.3 million are women, bringing the number of female contributors to 43.5% of the total number of foreign workers, a figure that is increasing.

In terms of temporary employment, the rate is at an all-time low for both nationals and foreigners. In fact, the percentage of foreign contributors with temporary contracts is 11.3% and that of nationals is 12%.

Record number of self-employed foreign workers

In particular, the number of foreign self-employed contributors reached an all-time high in May: 484,062 people, 6.5% more than a year ago. "We see that foreign workers are increasingly opting for our country to start their own business and are thus becoming generators of employment," Saiz points out.

The momentum is particularly visible in high-skilled sectors. In the last year, the number of foreign self-employed workers has increased 31.9% in Information and Communications, and 17.7% in Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities.

Non official translation