Of the 468,000 jobs created across Spain last year, roughly 409,000 were filled by migrants or people with dual nationality, many of them from Latin America, but also from across Europe and Africa.
It’s a glimpse of how Spain has become Europe’s buzziest economy – named the world’s best by the Economist in 2024 – fuelled in part by what analysts have described as the government’s strikingly different approach to migration.
Studies carried out across Europe and the US had long demonstrated the economic benefits of migration, said Jean-Christophe Dumont, the head of the OECD’s international migration division.
High rates of migration have allowed Spain to take advantage, and push unemployment levels to their lowest since 2008, as migrants have plugged the gaps in a labour market where the working-age population is ageing.
A record 94 million tourists visited Spain last year – up 10% on the previous year – creating jobs in hotels, restaurants and other tourist services.
