Immigration, a key economic factor
President Salvador Illa said this Tuesday in the Catalan Parliament that "immigration makes us a better country." Is this true? Before responding based on ideological bias, for or against, it's necessary to look at the data. The study was presented this Tuesday. Demographic transition, immigration and aging in Catalonia 2024-2050, Prepared by Josep Oliver, professor of applied economics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and presented at the Association of Economists of Catalonia.
The most striking fact in this academic work is that between 2018 and 2024, according to the Active Population Survey (EPA) of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), of the 450,000 new jobs created in Catalonia, nearly 97% were filled. Foreigners, who make up 25% of the population, now provide more than 29% of all employment in Catalonia, when in 1995 they barely represented 3%. Youth is a very relevant factor in this group: of the nearly two million newcomers residing in our country, 44.3% are between 25 and 34 years old, according to data from last year.
The lack of native citizens of working age – the birth rate in Catalonia is the lowest in the last three decades – has long been clearly compensated for by those who come from outside, without whom the economic dynamism of Catalonia and Spain would be impossible. According to the Financial Times, "Spain is an exceptional bright spot among European economies," despite noting the productivity problem. The English-speaking newspaper highlights the demographic increase resulting from immigration and the tourism sector as driving factors. Both have also been key in boosting consumption. Financial Times It also notes that immigrants have primarily filled gaps in low-value-added sectors, such as hospitality and construction, and warns of the problem of access to housing. In any case, it places immigration as "an important source of economic resilience." A recent report by the Bank of Spain reinforces this argument, linking GDP growth to the incorporation of the immigrant population.
All this does not mean, however, that the Catalan economy, if it wants to maintain its momentum and emerge from dependence on low-productivity and low-quality jobs with low and even precarious wages, does not need to invest in industrial and technological sectors with added value and linked to R&D. Only in this way will economic growth be reflected not only in GDP, but also in GDP per capita, that is, in the prosperity of its citizens. Because, in effect, it is one thing to view the phenomenon from a macroeconomic perspective, where there is no discussion about the benefits of migration, and another to ignore the problems at the micro level, both at the economic level and in social terms (healthcare, education, housing) and in terms of cultural integration (language, habits, and lifestyles).
In any case, however, with the Catalan birth rate at rock bottom, the incorporation of young international people will continue to be necessary. And the better the jobs, the more qualified immigrants will come; a phenomenon, that of the so-called expats, which is already beginning to be relevant.