Romania, Morocco, Italy and Colombia, largest groups of foreign workers in Spain

The Spanish Social security institution recorded a total of 2,439,668 foreign contributors in September after discounting seasonality and the calendar effect. This is 19,791 more workers than the previous month and brings the year-to-date increase to 133,000.

If February 2020, before the impact of the pandemic, is taken as reference, the system shows an increase of 250,000 foreign workers.

This figure in August represents 12.1% of the total national insurance contributors, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Average monthly contribution

In average and non-seasonally adjusted terms, the social security system had 2,456,019 foreign contributors in September, of whom 842,036 were from EU countries (34.3%) and 1,613,983 from third countries (the remaining 65.7%). This is 18,528 less contributors than in the previous month.

A total of 55.9% were men (1,374,015) and 44.1% women (1,082,004).

The largest groups of foreign workers came from Romania (334,642), Morocco (286,726), Italy (163,820), Colombia (124,609) and Venezuela (120,344).

More than 60,000 Ukrainian

In addition, and among the various nationalities, there are 60,146 national insurance contributors from Ukraine. This is 12,887 more than in January, the month before the impact of the war.

The vast majority of people from Ukraine working in Spain (90%) are salaried workers and therefore covered by the general scheme, while the other 10% are self-employed (autonomos).

Gender and scheme distribution

Of the countries with the most workers in the system, it is only among Venezuelan nationals that there are more female employees (60,796) than male employees (59,548). There are also more Ukrainian women contributors (34,521) than Ukrainian men (25,625).

The majority of foreigners, a total of 2,048,658, or 83.4%, contribute to the general scheme.

The self-employed scheme has 401,815 foreign contributors. Of the total number of self-employed foreign workers, 15.4% are Chinese, followed by those from Romania (11.1%) and Italy (8.9%).

In terms of sectors, the increases in Education (23.28%), Agriculture, Livestock, Hunting, Forestry and Fishing (9.9%) and the special agricultural system (8.27%) stand out this month. The sharpest declines were recorded in Household Activities (-7.76%), Public Administration and Defence; Compulsory Social Security (-4.92%) and Hotels and Restaurants (-3.76%).