GUISSONA, Spain (news agencies) — Inside a cavernous production plant in Spain, people from 62 nationalities work side by side to keep a food company humming as millions of legs of ham travel on hooks along conveyor belts.
Foreign workers have helped to make Spain’s economy the envy of the industrialized world, even as anti-immigration sentiments grow elsewhere in Europe and in the United States.
“BonÀrea would not be possible if it weren’t for the people from other countries who have come here to work. We should be eternally grateful to them,” the company’s head of human resources, Xavier Moreno, told media during a recent visit.
Tapping into foreign labor helped Spain’s economy grow by about 3% last year, smashing the euro zone average of 0.8%, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
That also beat the U.S. growth rate of 2.8%, according to OECD projected figures, where President Donald Trump has pledged to close borders and deport immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Spain’s ministry for social security and migration says 45% of all jobs created since 2022 have been filled by around half a million new foreign-born workers. Nearly 3 million foreigners now represent 13% of the country’s workforce.
“We had two ways to deal with the challenge,” the minister, Elma Saiz, told the news agencies. “That Spain be a closed and poor country or an open and prosperous one.”
Pedro Aznar, professor of economics with the Esade Business School in Barcelona, said the influx of foreign workers has helped Spain fare far better than Germany, the traditional motor of Europe’s economy, whose manufacturing industry is in crisis.
Spain is driven by services, in particular its buoyant tourism sector. Foreigners do typically lower-wage jobs that many Spaniards don’t want. And while Spain takes in fewer asylum-seekers than other European countries, it’s in the rare position to attract millions of economic migrants from South America who swiftly incorporate into Spain’s job market and social fabric thanks to the common language.
Practically all of Spain’s population growth since the COVID-19 pandemic is due to immigration, with 1.1 million people arriving in 2022, according to the Bank of Spain. It credits the newcomers with sustaining the aging country’s social security system — a challenge common in other European nations.
The bank said 85% of the 433,000 people who found a job last year between January and September were foreign-born.
Across Europe, the rise of anti-migrant sentiment has spurred far-right political parties. Spain also has seen the rise of anti-migration political forces that focus on unauthorized migration from Africa and Islamic countries, but they haven’t been able to impose their narrative as deeply.
Mohamed Es-Saile, 38, arrived from Morocco illegally when he was 16, crossing into Spain’s north African exclave of Ceuta. He now works legally as an electrician and repairman at BonÀrea.
“I don’t feel any hate toward migrants here,” Es-Saile said. “From my point of view, a person (from abroad) can adapt to situations in a new country, even sometimes better than people from that country.”
Latin Americans have made up the bulk of immigrants who arrived legally. According to the most recent census, over 4 million Latin American immigrants were living in Spain legally in 2023.
Víctor Razuri was brought over by BonÀrea from Peru last year as a mechanic and electrician. The 41-year-old said he has had little problem adapting.
“In Peru, you don’t see many people from other parts of the world. When I got here, I was working with people from Ukraine, from Morocco, and with a few other people from Latin America,” he said. “It was a little tough at first, but I think I have adapted.”
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has defended legal migration, drawing attention to its economic benefits. Spain added an estimated 458,000 authorized immigrants last year, according to the National Statistics Institute.
While 31% come from other EU countries, leading countries of origin also include Morocco, Colombia, Venezuela, China, Peru and Ukraine.
New arrivals often take service jobs, construction, farming, fishing and home care and cleaning.
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