Record number of Romanians employed in Spain

Nearly 15% of employees in Spain have a nationality other than Spanish, a new record for the Iberian country.

For more than a decade, most of them have been Romanians, outnumbering Moroccans, Colombians and Chinese.

The number of foreigners currently contributing to Spanish social security is 2.785.000 out of a total of 20.5 million.

Of these, 340.514 are Romanians, ranked first among the nations resident in the Iberian Kingdom. Even though they outnumber Romanians, Moroccans are still the second most employed.

They are followed by Colombians, Italians, Venezuelans and Chinese, half the number.

There has been a steady increase in the number of Ukrainians since the war broke out and Spain opened its borders to refugees.

The main activities are in tourism, agriculture and construction, each of which accounts for about a quarter of all jobs taken up by foreigners.

The proportions also hold true for Romanians.

Another field where many Romanians are employed is the so-called 'empleado del hogar', i.e. in cleaning and home care.

There are 6.5 million foreign residents living in Spain.

Officially, there are 624.000 Romanians, unofficially there are more than 1.000.000. The reason for this is due to the different and inconsistent counting formulas.

Translated by: Radu Matei