The Future of Immigration in Catalonia: Economic Crisis and Demography

The economic crisis is taking a significant toll in terms of rising unemployment and job losses. A total of 350,000 jobs were lost between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the third quarter of 2009, the latest data available, with similar patterns for both local and immigrant workers. However, the unemployment rate among immigrants is much higher than that for local workers, at around 28% in the third quarter of 2009 compared with 15% for those born in Catalonia. This reflects a rise in the immigrant workforce (at least until the end of 2008) and the levelling off and subsequent decrease in local workers. Within this context, it is vital to assess why the immigrants have come, what their contribution to growth has been, and what Catalonia’s needs are going to be over the coming decades. Answering these questions should help us avoid losing our perspective in particularly complex times.

Why immigration? The answer is simple: the birth rate in Catalonia started to fall in the mid-seventies, with the result that twenty years later there has been a great reduction of the number of people coming onto the job market: from close to 100,000 people available for work in 1995 down to just 50,000 from the year 2000 onwards. This is the material foundation on which the arrival of immigrants must be based: the insufficiency of the local workforce to meet Catalonia’s demand.

A second aspect, also worth highlighting, is the contribution made by immigration to economic growth during the first decade of the new millennium, and up to the start of the crisis. A conservative estimate places this at around 40% of growth in GDP, meaning that almost half the rise in income in Catalonia between 2000 and 2007 was generated by immigrants. Moreover, the rise in GDP has not benefitted local people and immigrants equally, so while the former have enjoyed significant increases in income per inhabitant, the opposite is actually true for the latter. In addition, the fiscal balance of immigration (i.e. what they receive from the public authorities compared with what they pay in) is clearly favourable to local people, given their demographic distribution.

Finally, the demographic slide in the native populace continues to progress in the population pyramid. The fall in the birth rate has continued up to the present day and the future workforce available in the coming twenty years is already a fait accompli. But moreover, as of 2015, and even more so after 2020, the later generations of the “baby boomers”, i.e. those born between approximately 1955 and 1975, will be starting to retire. So in addition to the potential problems of an insufficient workforce from 2015 onwards we will also have to add an overall increase in pensions and social welfare requirements.

Immigrants have come because Catalonia has needed them, because Catalonia has decided, and continues to decide, not to have children and instead has taken the decision to call on immigrants. Over the coming decades our need for immigrants will continue, and this is an aspect that needs to be included in the current debate.