"I earned more in Mexico at university than here with three jobs"

BarcelonaRobert González explains that when he received his first paycheck in Barcelona after working for eight years in Mexico, he thought they had made a mistake. His salary as a high school teacher in 2022 had not increased by a single euro, it was exactly the same as before he left, in 2014. And not only that. His fees as an associate professor at the university had even dropped. "I knew that returning to Catalonia would mean I would lose purchasing power, but I didn't expect it to be so much," he confesses. "I earned more in Mexico as a full professor at the university than here with three jobs."

The ARA has spoken to several Catalans who have returned to Catalonia after having worked for years abroad and they all agree that they earn less here proportionally. Even those who come from countries that we consider less developed than ours say this. They also say that working conditions here are usually worse, and that the high price of housing mortgages any ability to save. In fact, this is what has surprised everyone the most: that, proportionally, they have to pay more for a rental apartment here than abroad.

Robert, 49, and his wife, Alejandra Araiza, 48, can put the numbers on it all. In Mexico they paid 350 euros a month for a two-story house, had two cars and the savings and purchasing power to travel often. In Barcelona, ​​​​in contrast, they live in a normal apartment that costs 1,350 euros a month, they don't have a car and can no longer save.

In Mexico, Robert worked as a professor of political science at the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo, which is public, and earned 3,000 euros a month. In Barcelona he is a full-time high school teacher and also teaches at two universities. In total he works about 49 hours a week and yet earns less than in Mexico.

His wife has it even worse. She obtained one of the famous María Zambrano scholarships, promoted by the Spanish government to encourage the return of researchers and which ultimately turned out to be a fiasco. Alejandra has not been paid what she was promised nor has she had a job continuity.

"We are not complaining about not having the same luxuries as in Mexico, but it is more difficult to have the minimum conditions for a decent life here," she explains. The downside, however, is clear: they have returned because they have a 13-year-old daughter and they consider Catalonia to be a safer place than Mexico. However, the landing has not been easy. Although they had a high purchasing power in Mexico, the paychecks there were not enough for them to find an apartment here because the salary was in pesos with biweekly payments.

According to the latest data from the Idescat register of residents abroad, on January 1, 2024, there were 386,486 Catalans registered in another country. This figure had increased by 5.2% compared to a year ago and, in fact, this increase was noted in practically all regions. The ranking of countries that have welcomed the most Catalans is led by France, with 56,496 residents; followed by the United Kingdom, with 35,277 people who have emigrated; and Argentina in third position, with 32,802 Catalan residents

However, the flight of scientific and technological talent, which has increased in recent decades, is no exception to Catalonia. In fact, compared to the club of OECD countries, Spain is among the least affected by this phenomenon. According to a study carried out by the Xartec Salut research group network, the State has 2.3% of highly qualified people of working age residing abroad, being the second country least affected by this situation. Only the United States has a lower level. On the contrary, in countries such as Luxembourg or Ireland, one in five citizens with a university education resides in another OECD country.

The Network of Associations of Spanish Researchers and Scientists Abroad (RAICEX) assures that there are 20,000 Spaniards with these profiles who resided in other countries in 2020 and estimates that 8.4% of those with a doctorate have settled outside the doctorate.

Alternatives to earn more

Georgina Navarro, 43, also suffered a loss of purchasing power upon her return from Ireland after living there for 13 years, from 2003 to 2016. Real estate agents did not consider her pay slips valid even though, in her case, her salary was in euros. She is a travel agent and her purchasing power has not decreased since she returned, but her working conditions have worsened dramatically.

"In Ireland they paid me more than 2,000 euros a month. Returning to Catalonia meant earning about 1,300 euros again, and it didn't seem fair to me after so many years abroad and with experience that others don't have," she says. So the solution she sought was to work night shifts and from Sunday to Thursday in a travel agency. In this way, they pay her a night shift bonus and another weekend bonus, allowing her to have a salary similar to that in Ireland. She returned for another common reason: she wanted to be close to her family and, in her case, she grew tired of the freezing, rainy Irish climate. There, she says, people work to live and not live to work. "If the sun comes out, they let you leave work early and no one works split shifts," she gives as examples.

Claudia Luna Massuet has also made resignations since she returned to Catalonia last year. She is 29 years old, a midwife and went to work in the English city of Oxford in March 2018, when she had just graduated as a nurse. Her salary there was similar to that here, but the working conditions were infinitely better, she says. In Catalonia, she was only offered "junk contracts" of one month or even one day. In Oxford, on the other hand, the public John Radcliffe hospital gave her a permanent contract from almost the first day, allowed her to choose which unit she wanted to work in, what hours she wanted to work, and gave her seven weeks of vacation a year.

"I managed everything through an agency, financed by the hospital itself. I didn't have to pay anything," she explains. "They interviewed me via videoconference, and then they paid for my flight to England. They picked me up at the airport in a taxi at the hospital for 1.50 euros. One from Spain: Madrid, Galicia, Valencia..." The only condition they put on her was that she had to work at the hospital for at least two years.

During the first three months in Oxford, Claudia worked as a nursing assistant, until she passed an official English exam and was then able to work as a nurse. To speed up the process, the hospital allowed her to attend English classes during her working hours. In addition, it also facilitated her training as a midwife. "In England, public hospitals encourage the specialization of their staff and pay for it with government aid."

Claudia returned to Catalonia in May last year, because her partner lives here and because she suffers from migraines and the cloudy weather in Oxford caused her more headaches. Here she is again working as a nurse in a public hospital. She has been given a one-year contract and, in addition to working during the week, she must work on alternate weekends. "If I stayed like this, it would have been a bad change," she admits. She is confident that her working conditions will improve when her midwifery qualification is validated.

Neus Edo, 59, regrets that her profession is not socially recognised here. She is a social worker and has lived abroad for twenty years: five in Venezuela and fifteen in Bolivia. She returned in May 2019 and, according to her, has gone from earning a salary in Bolivia that allowed her to live a middle-class life, to earning here little more than the minimum wage and having trouble paying the rent and making ends meet. "The main problem is housing. I didn't expect those prices," she confesses. She currently lives in Parets del Vallès. She returned aware of the good social services that exist in Catalonia, where she wants to retire.

Since 2002, there has been a law in Catalonia to support Catalans who live abroad and want to return. Specifically, it provides financial aid for extreme cases, that is, for those who return and have hardly anything. "It's an obsolete law," says Dori Castilla, who has lived in Norway for eight years and is a member of the Council of Catalonia Abroad, an advisory body to the Generalitat. "Perhaps money is not needed, but rather the process of returning should not be a torture. There are many formalities to be completed and there is no single place to obtain information," she explains by telephone. In the absence of institutional support, many of those abroad have organized themselves: they have created the website Catalansalmon.com and they even have a WhatsApp group for returnees.

Sergi, 33, who prefers to keep his surname anonymous, has worked for six years in Brussels as a technician for a European political party. He returned to Catalonia last September and is looking for work in the third sector or in international relations. "In Brussels, salaries in this sector ranged between 1,800 and 2,800 euros net per month. In contrast, here they range from 1,500 to 2,000. They are lower, although the cost of living is similar," he explains. According to him, the price of housing in certain areas of Brussels was not that far from Barcelona. "There I could find a studio for between 850 and 1,200 euros per month," he gives as an example. His work day in Belgium was 37.7 hours a week, he had restaurant vouchers and also eco-vouchers of 200 euros for the purchase of bicycles or ecological products.

Same company, but different salary

Mikel Petri, 35, a graduate in economics and computer science, has also lost purchasing power since his return from the United States in January last year, although both there and here he works for the same company: Amazon. In the United States, his base salary was 60% higher than in Catalonia. "Amazon pays you based on local conditions and life there was very expensive and there was a lot of competition," he argues to justify the huge difference. He lived in San José, in the San Francisco Bay Area. "We paid $3,900 a month in rent, and $3,500 for my son's nursery." However, he says, he had the capacity to save. Here he has gained in other aspects: in the United States, Amazon gave him 15 days of paid vacation a year and six weeks of paternity leave, and there he has twenty weeks and 25 days of vacation.

"For a highly qualified person who goes to work in countries like the US, returning to Spain will have a significant cost, except for those who do so with an aid program that can compensate for American salaries. Few people return, even if they have to pay the cost of private education or healthcare, because salaries are much higher," says Farré, a researcher at the Institute of Economic Analysis (IAE-CSIC). In these cases, she points out, the fact that Spain has a more solid welfare state is not a sufficient argument, although the academic admits that it can work when it comes to people with low qualifications, who live in areas with lower salaries or higher levels of crime. "You can consider returning to pay contributions in Spain and collect a pension," adds Farré. In any case, she argues that family ties and the desire to return to one's roots are the reason behind most of these returns, which almost always entail a loss of purchasing power for the affected person.

Marc Closa, a 32-year-old bioinformatics consultant, has lost both purchasing power and work benefits by returning to Catalonia. He worked at the University of Copenhagen from 1 February 2020 to October 2021. His salary there was 1,500 euros higher than what he earns here now, and he paid 1,500 euros a month in rent for a 55 m2 flat.² with all expenses included: electricity, water and gas. His contract was for 37 hours a week – although he worked many more, he says – and he paid less taxes because he had moved to Denmark to do a technical job. On arrival, he was also given a bonus of 25,000 krona (about 3,500 euros) to pay the deposit for the accommodation, and the university's human resources department facilitated all the procedures for opening a bank account and obtaining a residence and work permit. They even provided him with six free sessions with a psychologist to discuss issues related to his work.

Why did he come back then? "It's a good question. I ask myself the same thing. I came back for my family and because I wanted to have a certain stability. At university, contracts are only for two or three years," he answers. Now he works in a data analysis consultancy for pharmaceutical companies, but he has not ruled out returning to Denmark one day.