Immigration has contributed andl 84% of the growth of the Spanish population in the last two years. That is the most relevant data for 2024 for Funcas, the savings bank research service.
On October 1 (latest data available) the Spanish population was at the historical maximum of 48.94 million citizens after increasing by 1.5 million since January 1, 2022. Funcas values that this growth has fundamentally come from the population with foreign nationality, which has contributed 1.2 million citizens (84%), while the population with Spanish nationality has increased by 232,000 people, which is why this percentage has been chosen as ‘Data of the year’. The foreign population has passed to represent 11.6% of the total population at the beginning of the period considered to assume the 13.8%.
Crucial to create jobs
“This trend is relevant insofar as it has sustained the growth of the economy and job creation, especially in the sectors most affected by labor shortages,” says Funcas in a statement.
All the autonomous communities have experienced a strong increase in the foreign population, which has more than compensated for the loss of the Spanish population (except in Estremadura, only community where the total population has decreased in the same period). The entry of immigrants has been especially pronounced in some of the regions most threatened by demographic decline, such as Asturias, Castilla y León and Galicia. Conversely, the growth of the foreign population has been generally lower in territories where its weight was already high, such as Balearic Islands, Canary Islands or Catalonia.
In the expansion stage prior to the 2008 crisis, the population registered very intense growth, 70% of which came from immigration. With the outbreak of the crisis the growth slowedand even from 2012 to 2015 the total population decreased due to the departure of the immigrant population. Starting in 2016, the number of inhabitants increased again, although at more moderate rates, stagnating in 2020 and 2021, the years of the pandemic. Starting in 2022, a new stage of strong growth begins, supported, as in the first years of the century, by the contribution of the immigrant population.
The “data of the year” is an initiative of the savings banks’ think tank in which their researchers annually highlight a particularly significant fact for the Spanish economy during the year that ends.
If in 2023 they decided to give this distinction to whats 170.8 billion euros What did pension spending mean in Spain? 15.8 billion more than the previous year and the largest annual increase in history, this year they do so due to the contribution of immigration to Spain.
40% of the employment created between the first quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024 has been occupied by foreigners, according to Social Security affiliation figures. In sectors such as hospitality, commerce and construction The percentage has been between andl 45% and 60%, and, in agriculture, 80%. In this way, 13.4% of the total Social Security affiliates in the third quarter of 2024 were foreigners, two percentage points more than at the beginning of 2022.
The Active Population Survey (EPA) shows an even greater weight of foreigners in the growth of employment in the period, 45%, and, in addition, they have accounted for 57% of the increase in the active population, that is, of the contribution of new labor to the economy. 15% of the total number of current employees are, according to the EPA, of foreign nationality, compared to 12.7% in the first quarter of 2022.
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