Key messages
- The immigrant population in Spain now exceeds 9 million and has grown at a rate of 600,000 people per year since the end of the pandemic.
- Immigrants account for 23% of Spain’s working population. Up to 90% of the new jobs created between January 2024 and March 2025 were filled by immigrants.
- The average level of educational attainment among immigrants in Spain is low and they are employed in jobs that require little in the way of qualifications.
- Various economic sectors now depend completely or largely on immigrant labour. For instance, 72% of those employed in domestic service and 45% in hospitality are immigrants.
- Educational drop-out rates are very high among teenagers and youths of immigrant origin, three times the rate of native Spaniards, which augurs difficulties for their occupational and social integration.
Analysis
This paper is the first in a series of analyses that the Elcano Royal Institute is publishing on the occupational integration of immigrants in Spain. Thus, for the various major population groups born abroad the most salient data will be analysed in terms of educational attainment levels, rates of employment, activity and unemployment, occupational sectors and earnings.
The goal is to obtain a panoramic picture that will reveal the main features of how the employment integration of immigrants in Spain is unfolding. Adult migrants’ integration into the world of work is one of the major preconditions for their social integration and for their full acceptance by the bulk of society.
This first analysis sets out data for the entirety of the immigrant population, divided by origin, which will be complemented in successive studies with research into each of the major groups of immigrants in Spain, such as Latin Americans, Europeans from high-income countries and Africans.
The first part of the analysis is devoted to setting out the basic characteristics of immigration in Spain, while the second part deals with the data relating to their integration in the employment market.
The main sources used in drawing up this text were the Continuous Municipal Register (Padrón Continuo de Población), the Continuous Population Statistics (Estadística Continua de Población) and the Active Population Survey (Encuesta de Población Activa, EPA, microdata for the fourth quarter of 2024), all compiled by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
The context: size, composition and characteristics of immigration in Spain
A preliminary note is required before going any further: the definition used for international migrants in this text is the one used by the UN and its Population Division. International immigrants are people who live in a country other than the one in which they were born. It follows from this definition that people are immigrants regardless of their legal status in their country of residence, whether they are regular, irregular or have received a new nationality, rich or poor, economic immigrants or political refugees.
Defined as ‘born abroad’, and according to the most recent data published by the INE in its Continuous Population Statistics, the total number of immigrants in Spain is 9,379,972 people (provisional figures as at 1 January 2025), accounting for 18% of the total population. This group comprises first-generation immigration (which is to say born abroad). Some countries include second-generation immigration in their figures, in other words the descendants of the first generation, and even in some cases successive generations. The reason for this attention being paid to second and subsequent generations is the realisation in several countries that many of these descendants of immigrants face specific difficulties that threaten their successful integration. In Spain, second-generation immigrants, defined as the offspring of a mother and/or father born abroad, now amount to 3,100,000 individuals (EPA, 4Q24). Of these, 1,800,000 are the offspring of two immigrant parents and 1,300,000 are the offspring of only one immigrant parent.
A large number of first-generation immigrants now resident in Spain have obtained Spanish nationality, in total 2,800,000 people, most of them Latin Americans, according to figures from the Municipal Register on 1 January 2024. This is why the figures relating to the population of ‘foreigners’ in Spain are substantially lower than those relating to the immigrant population.
All the population increase that Spain has recorded so far this century is attributable to inward migration. The reduction in the number of births per woman is a phenomenon that increasingly affects all continents, such that nearly the whole of Europe, the Americas, Oceania and part of Asia now find themselves below the replacement rate (2.1 children per woman) and consequently heading towards a smaller total population. For some years Spain has ranked among the countries with the lowest fertility rate in the world (1.12 children per woman) and its population, in the absence of immigration, would therefore now number below the 40 million that it had at the start of the century. But immigration has done much more than preventing demographic decline: it has caused a substantial increase in the total population.
In total the Spanish population has grown 23% so far this century, an increase three times greater than the average undergone in the same period by other western European countries, specifically those that already belonged to the EU at the start of the century.
In terms of origin, the immigrant population in Spain is highly diverse, with representation from all continents and more than 50 countries from which at least 9,000 people have arrived,[1] and 22 with more than 100,000. The largest source is Morocco, with more than one million immigrants recorded at the start of 2024, followed by Colombia, with 850,000. However, Latin American immigrants as a whole greatly exceed any other group and constitute one of the most striking features of immigration in Spain: Latin American immigration accounts for 47% of the total.
This preponderance of Latin American immigrants, with their linguistic and religious affinities to the bulk of the Spanish population, creates a very different social context to the one prevailing in other Western European countries, where Asia and Africa are the main source of non-EU immigration. This predominance of Latin American immigration in Spain is an outcome, first, of the visa exemption that allows free entry to the citizens of most Latin American countries; secondly, to the ‘network’ effect, whereby immigrants are attracted towards places where acquaintances, family members and friends have already installed themselves; third, to the reuniting of families; and fourth, to the facilities Spain offers, enabling Latin American immigrants to apply for Spanish nationality, something they can receive after two years of legal residence, compared with the 10 years required of other immigrants.[2]
At a much lower level than South American immigration is European immigration from EU countries (18%), Africa (17%), non-EU European countries (9%) and Asia (6%), essentially China and Pakistan. Annex 2 provides the complete list of immigrant source countries.
Youth tends to be a prevailing characteristic of international migration when viewed as a large-scale phenomenon: youngsters are those who most often take the decision to leave their country. The age pyramid of the immigrant population in Spain is substantially younger than that of their native counterparts, largely owing to the continuous inflow of new immigration after the country recovered from the economic crisis of 2008-14, apart from the 2020-21 period (COVID-19). An annual average of 600,000 immigrants have installed themselves in Spain since January 2022 (net figures, in other words deducting those who left the country). Immigrants often arrive in the company of their young children or they reunite subsequently, thereby adding an even greater youth factor to the migratory inflow.
Even immigration from Western European countries is now younger than the native population. Contradicting the stereotype that sees immigrants from rich European countries as retirees living on the Spanish coasts, immigration from these countries is concentrated in the age of peak economic activity. Indeed, 67% are aged 20-59 (immigrants from the UE-27 excluding those from Romania, Bulgaria and Portugal). As a result of this process, immigrants of any origin now account for 29% of the population resident in Spain aged 25-49. In the group of greatest concentration, aged 30-34, there are 52 immigrants for every 100 natives (34% of the total for this age group).
The effect of the arrival of young immigrants of reproductive age can be seen in the age structure of the Spanish-born population (Figure 1). As mentioned above, the offspring born in Spain to an immigrant mother and/or father now number more than three million people. Meanwhile, the birth rate among native mothers has fallen considerably: in the 2009-23 period it fell by 42%.[3] As a consequence, among those aged under three, the children of an immigrant mother and/or father now account for 30%.[4]
In terms of nationality, geographical origin and parental geographical origin, the population resident in Spain breaks down as shown in Figure 2. Here it was necessary to rely on the EPA data, because the Municipal Register (Padrón) does not enable the components of the second generation to be identified. The Native Population label in Figure 2 refers to the population born in Spain to a mother and father also born in Spain. It currently accounts for 75% of the total population. ‘Second generation’ refers to the population born in Spain to a mother and/or father born outside Spain. The group of immigrants who have obtained Spanish nationality also includes those who maintain dual nationality (Spanish and the nationality of their home country).
In terms of geographical origin, classified by major regions, Figure 3 shows the break-down, based on Municipal Register data as at 1 January 2024 (the data relating to 2025 do not enable such a break-down to be made).
Immigration is distributed heterogeneously in Spain, with as many as 15 provinces where it now represents more than 20% of the population (Figure 4). Predominating among these are the economic and tourist hubs such as Madrid, Barcelona, the islands and the Mediterranean coast. As a whole, immigration is greater in the eastern part of the peninsula and diminishes towards the west, with Extremadura and the provinces of northern Andalusia bringing up the rear.
Lastly, as far as gender is concerned, although there are striking imbalances depending on the geographical origin (male over-representation in African immigration and female over-representation in South American and Eastern European immigration), these partial imbalances cancel each other out, and as a whole the immigrant population is broadly balanced, with a small 51% majority of women, similar to the one any population exhibits naturally. In the succeeding analyses of specific immigrant groups the applicable gender divisions will be recorded.
The integration of immigrants into the Spanish employment market
As well as the heterogeneity of their origins, the immigrants are highly varied in terms of important variables affecting their ability to integrate, such as their educational attainment level, their participation in the employment market and their levels of income. In order to show this diversity and compare it with the situation of the Spanish-born population, an analysis of the microdata contained in the Active Population Survey (EPA, 4Q24) has been conducted.
The study focuses on individuals aged 25-59, in order to exclude youngsters still in training and adults who have retired from the employment market[5] and to make the groups being compared as similar as possible, given that the immigrant population aged over 59 is still very small in comparison to its Spanish-born counterparts.
When analysing the microdata, the population aged 25-59 was broken down into various groups: (a) the native Spanish-born population; (8) immigrants from high per capita income countries, similar or higher than Spain’s (henceforth to be referred to as HIC immigrants); (c) immigrants from low per capita income countries, lower than Spain’s, (henceforth referred to as LIC immigrants); and (d) second-generation immigrants (born in Spain to a mother and father born in low per capita income countries).[6] Meanwhile, immigrants from low per capita income countries were divided into four groups depending on their origin: Latin Americans, Europeans (Romanians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, etc), Africans and Asians. The details of these groupings are set out in Annex 1.
One of the main factors affecting integration into the employment market is educational attainment level, where there are strikingly major differences depending on geographical origin (Figure 5). Thus, while 49% of native Spaniards and 57% of HIC immigrants have a university or higher education qualification, among the LIC immigrants the percentage falls to 26%. For its part, this latter group is also highly heterogeneous, because whereas Latin Americans and Europeans from LICs exhibit percentages of 32% and 28% respectively, in the case of African immigrants this falls to 10%.
An especially concerning finding is the low level of educational attainment achieved by second-generation immigrants: 39% have completed only compulsory secondary education and only 25% of them have obtained a university qualification, 24 percentage points below native Spaniards.[7] This statistic shows that there is a failure of integration affecting a considerable proportion of second-generation immigrants in Spain: various studies have warned about the high educational drop-out rate among the children of immigrants (or immigrants themselves in the case of those who came to Spain in childhood or adolescence), especially among males, and about the risk that this incurs for their subsequent integration into the employment market and more generally for their social integration.[8]
As far as the activity rate[9] is concerned, this exceeds 80% for all groups, with the exception of Africans and Asians (Figure 6). In the African and Pakistani cases, the low activity rate has to do not only with the low educational attainment levels but also with the traditional nature of their gender roles, whereby women are expected to stay at home and not enter the employment market. Only 46% of immigrant women from Africa are active, compared with 87% of their male counterparts and 84% of native Spanish women (Figure 7).
Turning next to the employment rate,[10] all immigrant groups exhibit levels lower than the native population (80%), although with small differences in the cases of immigrants from high-income countries and Latin Americans. Among the other groups, however, the difference is at least nine percentage points and reaches 11 percentage points in the case of adults forming part of the second generation of immigrants and 28 percentage points in the case of African immigrants.[11]
In line with these activity and employment rates, unemployment rates are significantly higher among immigrants from low-income countries when compared to native Spaniards (Figure 8); this applies especially to African immigrants, with three times the rate of their native counterparts, but also among adult second-generation immigrants, with double the rate.
Again, the low employment and high unemployment rates among second-generation immigrants show that a failure is already unfolding with an implicit risk to social cohesion and a cost to the welfare state.
The educational attainment level of the immigrant population also shapes the types of activity they engage in. LIC immigrants tend to be concentrated in four sectors, accounting for more than half of this workforce: hospitality, retailing, construction and the manufacturing industry (Figure 9). As far as industry is concerned, immigrants are essentially employed in food-related jobs: meat-processing, bakeries, canneries, dairy processing… which account for 30% of all the LIC immigrants employed in this sector.
Sector concentration is especially high in the case of Asians. Three out of every four in this group are employed in hospitality or retailing. As far as the second generation is concerned, the offspring of LIC immigrants, they fall predominantly into two sectors, retailing and hospitality, which employ 53% of the workers in this group.
Domestic service stands out when attention turns to the proportions of workers in each sector (Figure 10). Here, 71% of workers (almost all of them women) are immigrants from low-income countries and the majority are Latin American women (53% of all workers in the sector). Next in the ranking of sectors most dependent on immigrant labour is hospitality, with 45%, followed by construction (32%), agriculture (31%), and administrative activities and auxiliary services (28%). In transport, ‘other services’, retailing and real estate activities the percentage of the working population originating from low-income countries also exceeds 20%.
Located at the other extreme, where immigrants have the least presence, are the sectors of Education and Public Administration, Defence and Social Security. The bulk of employment in these sectors involves civil service jobs and the institutionalised requirements for entering this service (including EU citizenship) hinder those immigrants who have not obtained Spanish nationality from gaining entry. Meanwhile, the selective entry process favours people with a high level of educational attainment. The result is that only 4% of immigrants from low-income countries are employed in the public sector (Figure 11).
Immigrants are predominantly found in the private sector as wage-earners, with the exception of Asians. Almost half of the latter are self-employed or entrepreneurs. As far as immigrants from ‘wealthy’ countries are concerned, they have a significant presence in white-collar occupations: professional, scientific and technical activities as well as educational, information, financial and real estate activities, with a high percentage of self-employment.
In terms of employment categories, LIC immigrants are concentrated in ‘basic occupation’ categories (Figure 12), where a fourth of all this group’s employees are found –as opposed to just 8% of native Spaniards– and in ‘service workers’, accounting for 27% of LIC immigrants and 18% of native Spaniards, whereas immigrants from high-income countries are above all found in the ‘technicians and scientific and intellectual professionals’ category. Among native Spaniards too this is the category that accounts for the greatest percentage of workers.
Overall, a ‘segmentation’ or ‘bifurcation’ of the employment market has occurred, whereby immigrants from low per capita income countries are concentrated in activities that require fewer qualifications and a greater degree of physical work (agriculture, retailing, hospitality, construction, domestic service, low-tech industries…) and, within these sectors, in roles with a lower position in the organisational hierarchy.
One outcome of this occupational distribution involves differences in earned income. The Active Population Survey (EPA) does not include questions about income, so researchers in this context are obliged to resort to the taxable income statistics compiled by the Spanish Social Security administration. In these statistics, individuals are classified by nationality, not by country of birth, and only countries with large numbers of contributors are dealt with separately.[12]
The average taxable income of citizens from high-income countries is €179 higher than their Spanish counterparts, a group that includes immigrants who have obtained Spanish nationality (Figure 13). It should be borne in mind that the Social Security taxable income bands are capped at their higher limit,[13] such that the highest salaries, those that are paid to directors in certain sectors, are not shown in the taxable income bands. It is highly likely therefore that the average earnings difference is greater than the one that emerges from the taxable income bands. Meanwhile, the gap between Spaniards’ average taxable income and that of citizens from low-income countries is €532, with Asians bringing up the rear.
Their lower educational attainment level is not the only factor accounting for LIC immigrants’ concentration in the aforementioned activities. Some immigrants with a university degree (as mentioned, 26% of LIC immigrants) only find employment in jobs that do not require this qualification. To a large extent this ‘squandering’ of their qualifications is due to the extremely prolonged process whereby their degrees are recognised. Meanwhile, overqualification is a widespread feature of the Spanish employment market, a consequence of the high proportion of people with university degrees, although it affects immigrants to a greater extent. More than half (54%) of immigrants with a university degree work in a role that does not require this qualification, a phenomenon that affects 33% of native Spanish graduates.[14] In addition to the problems related to the recognition of their degrees, this difference is also attributable to immigrants’ difficulties in accessing public sector employment, although in some specific areas, such as medicine, teaching and research, their presence is becoming increasingly visible.
The EPA data also reveal the educational status of youngsters aged 16-20 who have completed the period of compulsory education (ending in Spain at the age of 16), but the vast majority of whom have not yet joined the employment market.[15] In the case of native Spaniards, 86% continue in education and the same applies to 84% of second-generation immigrants and 82% of young immigrants from high per capita income countries (Figure 14). However, among immigrant teenagers (in other words, born abroad) from low-income countries (what is normally known as generation 1.5, having come to Spain in childhood or adolescence) only 67% continue in education, with major internal differences. 77% of Asians aged 16-20 remain in education, but only 65% of Africans and 66% of Latin Americans do so.
Again, these figures are a cause for concern from the viewpoint of the future employment prospects of these younger immigrants and suggest that the situation of generation 1.5 is even worse than that of the second generation, born in Spain. It also suggests that the Spanish education system is able to remedy some of the weaknesses exhibited by immigrant children when they first join it, but it does so to an insufficient degree: the outcomes are better for those who undergo all of their education in Spain (the second generation) than for those arriving from other educational systems, but they are also insufficient in the former case to achieve an equivalence of capabilities with the native Spanish population.
Conclusions
Spain is undergoing a transcendental change in its employment market with consequences for its economy and society as a whole that are as yet little studied. The bulk of the new employment that has been created in recent years, since the economic recovery following the pandemic, has been taken by immigrants, who account for 90% of all new jobs created in the five most recent quarters covered by the EPA (from January 2024 to March 2025).
This is the result of the post-pandemic growth in inward migration, with a net annual average of 600,000 people –in other words, subtracting those who leave the country– consisting above all in recent years of Latin Americans.
Immigration from countries with lower incomes than Spain’s accounts for 91% of all immigrants who are of peak working age (aged 25-59), and one of their chief characteristics is their low average level of educational attainment, substantially lower than their native Spanish counterparts and especially low in the case of immigrants from Asia and Africa. The arrival in recent years of thousands of medium- and high-income Latin American immigrants, with university qualifications, is a highly striking phenomenon, but still a relatively small part of overall Latin American immigration.
LIC immigration exhibits lower rates of employment than those of the native Spanish population in the same age groups, much higher rates of unemployment, and activity that is concentrated in low-productivity service sectors and consequently low earnings and low contributions to the pensions system.
Various sectors currently depend mainly or very significantly on immigration: at least 30% of the employees in domestic service, hospitality, construction and agriculture are immigrants, who have taken almost all the new jobs created in these sectors.
Immigration as a proportion of the total population will grow in coming years: immigrant children and the children of immigrants already account for 32% of children in primary and compulsory secondary education, at a time when the number of children being born to native Spanish women is falling. If the current trend continues, the population of immigrant origin will come to account for a growing proportion of the total. In this context, with a view to the future, the figures relating to the educational outcomes for second-generation and generation 1.5 immigrants are a particular cause for concern: their educational drop-out rate is 33%, three times that of their Spanish-born counterparts. Among those born in Spain to an immigrant mother and father and aged over 25, 39% have completed only the compulsory stage of secondary education, which means their being restricted to low-qualified ‘basic’ roles in the Spanish employment market and a greater risk of being unemployed.
All of this has a knock-on effect on second-generation immigrants’ social integration. Over the medium term it is foreseeable that this will have an impact on Spanish public opinion towards immigration, which is increasingly converging with the European average, and therefore consequences regarding the position immigration occupies in the political debate.
Annex 1. Definition of the categories used in the analysis of the employment market based on EPA microdata
Native population aged 25-59: born in Spain to a Spanish-born mother and father; 72.1% of the total.
Second generation aged 25-59: born in Spain to a mother and father born in countries with a lower per capita income than Spain’s; 0.3% of the total.
HIC immigrants aged 25-59: born in high per capita income countries (equal to or higher than Spain’s in 2024). This group comprises almost in its entirety western Europeans, with a small presence of people from the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other very small groups; 2.4% of the total.
LIC immigrants aged 25-59: born in low per capita income countries (lower than Spain’s in 2024). This includes the bulk of immigrants resident in Spain born in Latin America (13.5%), Africa (4.6%) and Asia (1.4%), plus eastern Europe (including Romania and Bulgaria) and Portugal (4.3%). As a group they account for 23.7% of the total.
These categories exclude from the analysis 1.5% of the population aged 25-59 (350,958 people): born in Spain to immigrants from high per capita income countries, people whose country of birth is not identified in the EPA or born in Spain with only one immigrant parent.
Annex 2. Immigrant population by country of birth, 1/I/2024
Figure 15. Distribution of the immigrant population by country of birth, 1/I/2024
| Country of birth | Population with a municipal registration in Spain as at 1/I/2024 |
|---|---|
| Morocco | 1,092,892 |
| Colombia | 856,616 |
| Venezuela | 599,769 |
| Romania | 532,456 |
| Ecuador | 448,643 |
| Argentina | 415,987 |
| Peru | 378,924 |
| UK | 285,093 |
| Cuba | 223,532 |
| France | 217,247 |
| Ukraine | 215,700 |
| Honduras | 201,319 |
| Dominican Republic | 201,162 |
| China | 198,805 |
| Bolivia | 189,285 |
| Brazil | 179,033 |
| Germany | 177,715 |
| Italy | 160,201 |
| Paraguay | 146,047 |
| Russia | 134,068 |
| Pakistan | 123,882 |
| Bulgaria | 104,756 |
| Portugal | 96,187 |
| Senegal | 95,812 |
| Uruguay | 89,595 |
| Algeria | 87,854 |
| Nicaragua | 87,786 |
| Mexico | 79,581 |
| Chile | 76,638 |
| US | 69,171 |
| India | 65,799 |
| Switzerland | 59,718 |
| Netherlands | 57,711 |
| Philippines | 57,498 |
| Poland | 54,832 |
| Belgium | 54,776 |
| Nigeria | 34,067 |
| Mali | 32,953 |
| Gambia | 28,750 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 25,281 |
| Moldavia | 24,923 |
| Ghana | 22,961 |
| Sweden | 22,408 |
| Bangladesh | 21,416 |
| Ireland | 19,642 |
| Lithuania | 15,365 |
| Guinea | 15,313 |
| Mauritania | 12,309 |
| Finland | 11,940 |
| Norway | 10,640 |
| Canada | 9,687 |
| Denmark | 9,100 |
| Others | 347,253 |
| Total immigrants | 8,838,234 |
[1] This is the smallest population that the INE distinguishes by country of birth.
[2] With exceptions such as citizens of Andorra, the Philippines and those of Sephardic origin.
[3] INE, Movimiento Natural de la Población.
[4] J. Bayona-i-Carrasco & Andreu Domingo (2024), ‘Descendientes de inmigrantes nacidos en España: ¿hacia una integración segmentada?’, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, nr 187, p. 25-44.
[5] The activity rate in Spain falls sharply after the age of 60, going from 78% to 58% (both sexes, 1Q25, EPA).
[6] This group has been singled out because research shows that the children of two immigrant parents hailing from low-income countries are those that face the greatest integration difficulties, in comparison to their native peers or to the children of only one immigrant parent, while the offspring of immigrants from wealthy countries do not encounter particular problems. These last two groups, which, according to EPA data, number 350,958 people aged 25-59, are not included in this analysis.
[7] Comparing the second generation with native Spaniards in the 25-30 age group, when formal education has ended for almost all, it emerges that 18% of native Spaniards have obtained only the compulsory secondary education qualification, whereas 32% of second-generation immigrants fall into this category.
[8] S. Carrasco, J. Pàmies & Laia Narciso (2018), ‘Abandono escolar prematuro y alumnado de origen extranjero en España ¿un problema invisible?’, CIDOB; VVAA (2021), ‘¿Por qué hay más abandono escolar entre los jóvenes de origen extranjero?’; and J. Bayona-i-Carrasco & Andreu Domingo (2024), ‘Descendientes de inmigrantes nacidos en España ¿hacia una integración segmentada?’.
[9] The activity rate is defined as the percentage of the population belonging to the age group in question (in this case, aged 25-59) that is in work or is looking for work.
[10] The employment rate is defined as the percentage of the population belonging to the age group in question (in this case, aged 25-59) that is in work.
[11] Other published research suggests higher activity and employment rates for immigrants than for their native counterparts. The difference is due to the fact that such analyses do not take into account the different age structures of immigrants and natives, nor do they focus their analysis, in either case, on the age groups where working activity tends at its peak.
[12] The countries identifiable in the Social Security administration’s taxable income statistics are all those in the EU-27 plus the UK, Ukraine, Morocco, China, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina.
[13] The maximum income in 2025 is €4,909 per month.
[14] Various authors (2024), ‘España desperdicia el talento extranjero’. El País.
[15] The activity rate of those aged under 20 is 12% (both sexes, EPA 1Q25).
