Spain | Immigration and employment dynamism

Keeping up with the twin digital and green transition while coping with an aging population and the retirement of the baby boomer generation calls for the astute and successful management of migratory flows, which will drive employment from 2021.

Key points

• Key points:
• As of 2015, the Spanish economy has been experiencing a gradual increase in population growth, which only slowed down temporarily in 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The most recent data indicate that in 2023 the resident population grew by 1.2% compared to the previous year. You have to head back to the expansionary period prior to the Great Recession to find equal or higher growth rates.
• As then, behind this increase in population is the influx of migrants. From January 1, 2020 to the same day in 2024, the resident population in Spain increased by 2.7%, while the foreign-born population has increased by 25.1% in only four years (23.9% with foreign nationality).
• This migratory flow has also resulted in a growth of the labor force between 15 and 64 years of foreign nationality. According to the Labor Force Survey (EPA), from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the same period of 2023, the foreign working population increased in size by 18.6%, two percentage points above the figure for the wider EU.
• The surge in the foreign employed population has a lot to do with the intensity of Spain’s economic recovery. These workers have filled many of the vacancies created by companies, thus preventing the labor market from becoming more strained than it was during this period.

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