- In the country as a whole, Social Security exceeds for the first time the 3.5 million foreign affiliates in July and adds more than 420,000 in a year
- The region recorded a year-on-year increase of 11.79%, incorporating 72,133 members of the system.
- With an increasingly diversified presence, both in activities with a high demand for labour and in sectors with higher qualifications and in self-employed entrepreneurship.
- The Community of Madrid accounts for 19.47% of the total number of foreign workers affiliated in Spain.
The Social Security has registered in the Community of Madrid 683,923 foreign affiliates on average in July, after adding 72,133 more jobs in the last 12 months, which represents an increase of 11.7%. In month-on-month terms, growth was 1.54% compared to June, with 10,384 affiliates on average.
Of the total, 52.95% (362,134) are men and 47.05% (321,788) are women. As for the country of origin, 28.31% (193,611) comes from the European Union, with Romania (80,787), Italy (42,334) and Portugal (16,782) in the lead. On the other hand, the remaining 71.69% (490.312) comes from outside the EU, with Venezuela (81.408), Colombia (70.908) and Peru (48.498) being the most numerous nationalities.
By contribution system, 87.96% (601,571) contribute to the General Social Security System. The most representative sectors in this group are Hospitality with 83,436 affiliates (13.87%); Administrative Activities with 79,123 (13.15%); Commerce with 77,774 (12.93%); Construction 64,492 (10.72%) and Transport and storage with 39,991 (6.6%). As for the Domestic Workers System, the number of foreign workers in the region reaches 56,598 (9.41%). For its part, the number of foreign self-employed affiliates in the region stood in July at 82,195 workers, with 714 new affiliates in a single month.
The Community of Madrid concentrates 19.47% of the total number of foreign workers affiliated in Spain; for its part, 17.5% of the affiliates in Madrid are foreigners.
New record of foreign affiliates
In the country as a whole, Social Security for the first time exceeds 3.5 million foreign affiliates in terms of average affiliation and also reaches a new peak in the seasonally adjusted series, which exceeds 3.4 million. Specifically, the System registered 3,512,223 foreign affiliates on average in July, 66,046 more than the previous month and 420,875 more than a year ago. Foreign affiliation thus grew by 13.6% year-on-year, compared to 2.9% of the System as a whole.
If the seasonality and the effect of the calendar are discounted, Social Security already has 3,407,558 foreign affiliates, after incorporating 408,333 in the last twelve months. The evolution of foreign affiliation maintains a sustained trajectory of growth. Since June 2022, the number of workers from other countries has increased by more than 1.2 million. In fact, 46.3% of the employment created since the implementation of the labor reform corresponds to foreign workers.
This growth also occurs in a labor market in which foreign affiliation presents an increasingly diversified presence, both by sectors of activity and by modalities of employment and forms of participation. Its incorporation is reflected both in activities with a high demand for labour and in sectors with higher qualifications and in self-employed entrepreneurship.
Impact of regularisation
The affiliation of foreign workers has shown a special dynamism during the first seven months of the year, with an acceleration of growth since the end of April, coinciding with the implementation of the extraordinary regularization process. If you take a picture of the labor market as of July 30, the number of foreign people who were already registered in the Social Security as a result of this process amounted to 262,475, compared to a total number of affiliation of 22,502,259 people. Of these, 213,883, or 81.5%, were covered by the General Social Security System, while 12,675, or 4.8%, were self-employed. By sex, 158,171 were men, 60.3%, and 104,304 women, 39.7%.
Average affiliation
Of the 3,512,223 foreign affiliates on average registered in July, 2,010,267 are men and 1,501,956 women. Women already account for about 43 per cent of the total number of foreign workers involved.
About 27.5% of foreign affiliates come from European Union countries. By nationality, Morocco continues to be the country with the most members of the Spanish Social Security and exceeds 415,000 contributors (415,310). It is followed by Colombia (347,467), Romania (342,555), Venezuela (247,209), Italy (223,589), China (136,395), Peru (133,002) and Ukraine (84,599).
Sectors of employed persons
Although they represent 15.6 per cent of all workers, the contribution of foreign workers is particularly relevant in some sectors of the General Social Security System. In Hospitality, they represent 32.9% of the members; in Agriculture, 28%; in Construction, they represent 26.6%; in Administrative Activities, 19.5% and in Transport, 18.4%. They also have a prominent role in the special systems: they represent 46.7% of the members of the Special Home System and 39.2% of the Special Agrarian System. It is necessary to highlight the high percentage of foreign workers with indefinite contracts, 86.4% of the total. If we compare it with the average percentage of the period 2017-2021, prior to the labor reform (58.9%) the data is even more striking. In parallel, the temporary rate of this group of workers falls to historical lows, falling to 13.6% while the percentage of national affiliates with temporary contracts is 13.4%.
More than 531,000 foreign self-employed workers
On the other hand, the number of self-employed workers continues to grow and stands at 531,568, which is 9.2% more than a year ago.
We must point out the growing presence of foreign workers who undertake in highly qualified sectors such as Telecommunications and Computer Programming, where they already represent more than 33% of the employed registered in this section of activity, that is, they are already one in three workers on their own account. It also stands out for its presence in other activities, such as Household Activities (27.4%), Hotel Management (25.6%), Administrative Activities (19.3%), Construction (18.6%) and Real Estate Activities (18.4%).