Thursday, November 16, 2006
Immigrants 'drive Spanish growth'
The BBC report that, half of Spain's recent economic growth can be attributed to immigration, according to a Spanish government-backed report. It says 30% of growth in the past 10 years, and 50% in the last five, has been thanks to immigrants.
In the Canary Islands, Diario de Avisos report that 17.5% of workers are foreigners, which has seen an increase of 34% more than the national average, according to data on the profile of immigrants, collated by temporary work agency, Adecco.
Between July 2005 and July 2006, 798,000 jobs were created in Spain, 415,000 of which are occupied by foreigners. Nationally, 40.75% of foreigners contracted in the last 12 months are from Latin America, whilst 19.73% are from North Africa.
There are some differences in the percentages in the Canary Islands, where 50.5% of foreign workers are from the American continent and only 9% from the Maghreb - despite the flow of poor African arrivals - but the figures also highlight the fact that some 26.7% come from other countries in the European Union and 1.2% from other locations on the Old Continent. What the document does not count are the number of workers in the Canary Islands who come from other communities in Spain.
The study found, not surprisingly, that the majority of foreign workers (60.64%) in the islands are employed in restaurants and hotels. A number are also employed in industry, although the report says that foreign workers are "not called to work in administration." In my experience, this is because we are never given access to nor consideration for those jobs, except in a few also foreign owned companies.
The profile of the typical foreign worker in the Canary Islands is of a Latin American woman, between 26 and 35 years, with an elementary education and who works in an hotel. By contrast, at national level, men working in industry predominate.
Immigrants 'drive Spanish growth'
