Romanians and Moroccans, largest groups of foreign workers in Spain
The Spanish Social Security institution registered 2,342,004 foreign affiliates in March after discounting seasonality and the calendar effect. This is 6,788 (0.29%) more foreign employed people than the previous month and 152,583 more than in February 2020, before the impact of the pandemic, according to government data.
This is the tenth consecutive month of employment growth of this group which, in the first quarter of the year, added 35,340 employed people. The figure represents 11.73% of the total number of Social Security affiliates, in seasonally adjusted terms, in March 2022.
In average terms and non-seasonally adjusted, the Social Security had 2,298,825 foreign contributors in March, of whom 810,122 came from EU countries (35.24%) and 1,488,703 (the remaining 64.76%) from third countries. This was 40,155 more affiliates than in February.
The largest groups of foreign workers come from Romania (336,949), Morocco (294,388), Italy (144,667), China (107,775) and Venezuela (106,663).
In addition, among other nationalities, there are 48,195 affiliates from Ukraine, 617 more than in February, before the Russian invasion began.
Some 56.21% are men (1,292,228), while 43.78% are women (1,006,597).
Foreign affiliation by region
By region, in the last month, foreign affiliation increased particularly in the Balearic Islands (8.69%) and Andalusia (4.18%), followed by Cantabria (2.93%) and the Canary Islands (2.26%).
La Rioja (-0.62%) and Extremadura (-0.07%) lost foreign affiliates to Social Security in March.
By regime, the majority of foreigners are affiliated in the General Regime, a total of 1,904,580 people, adding 36,957 employed people in the month, 1.98% more than the previous month.
By activity sector
The number of self-employed foreigners increased by 2,933 (or 0.76%) in the last month, bringing the total to 389,969.
The number of international workers increased in the majority of sectors. Among them, the increases recorded in Hostelry (7.18%), Arts and Entertainment Activities (4.98%) and Information and Communications (3.02%) stand out.
In the last twelve months, the total amount of registered workers from other countries has increased by 226,566 (or 10.93%).