"Without immigrants, businesses would go bankrupt": Olot, a land of opportunity but not housing

OlotOlot is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Catalonia. Especially after the pandemic, it adds nearly 1,000 people each year, most of them immigrants, representing an annual growth rate of 10% that brings the population close to 40,000. The trend for the next 15 years is one of sustained growth, according to Idescat (Spanish Institute of Statistics and Census), and this sharp increase in population has already set off alarm bells for the Olot City Council. The mayor, Agustí Arbós, of Junts (Junts), has repeatedly stated that he believes it is "unacceptable" to maintain this pace and be able to guarantee the quality of public services in the municipality.

One of the reasons Olot attracts so many foreign residents is its job opportunities. The strong industrial and business network of the region's industrial estates, with the meat industry as the main economic driver, coupled with other large machinery manufacturing and spinning companies, requires a significant labor force. It's also a region with a significant aging population, so there's a significant, often unregulated, market for elderly caregivers. Therefore, any newcomer, whether through temporary employment agencies, online job portals, or word of mouth, finds it relatively easy to find work in less than a week. "In Olot, if you don't work, it's because you don't want to," local residents acknowledge. However, in the slaughterhouse, with a capacity to slaughter 18,000 pigs a day, or in the production plants, the work is tough, often low-skilled, and physically demanding. These jobs, right now, without the arrival of migrants, would surely be left unfinished.

Beyond labor market conditions, the problem in Olot is that this demand for workers hasn't translated into a proportional growth in services, so schools, social assistance, healthcare, and transportation are increasingly under strain. The housing situation is particularly glaring. Despite the City Council's efforts to acquire and build public housing, there is little supply, prices are rising, and many landlords discriminate against the migrant population when renting rooms.

"Without immigrants, businesses would go bankrupt."

Mari Drammeh, 33, was born in Senegal, but has lived in Olot practically his entire life and knows the situation there firsthand: "Has population growth been linked to the arrival of workers in the meat industries, especially from sub-Saharan Africa, South America, or Eastern Europe, but? In Olot, housing is a utopia," he argues. The young man from Olot, who started working in a meat industry but left due to the working conditions, now works as a social worker: "We know that there are workers who end up sleeping in cars or sublet garages because they can't find housing," he confirms.

For example, in the case of Alidio, aged 58 – who has lived in La Garrotxa for 23 years and worked for a meat processing company for 17 – his rental contract has not been renewed for months and the City Council has not offered any solution: "They point to immigrants as the source of problems; one day the business owners' businesses would go bankrupt," he asserts.

Reports of these grievances have led to the creation of the platform Soms Garrotxa, which works to combat hate speech that violates the rights of migrants. The La Garrotxa Platform for People Affected by Mortgages and Stop Racisme Lloguers have also recently been reactivated. "In Olot, there are more than 1,300 empty apartments and nothing is being done. Meanwhile, people who come to work can't access housing and there is overcrowding, sub-rentals, and jobs, but not for criminals but for workers with papers and registered residents," argues Laia Costa, a member of Soms Garrotxa, basando-.

The activist also points directly to the meat industry's business model as one of the sources of the problem: "They haven't implemented the necessary mechanization because it's cheaper to use cheap, single-use labor. They dare to do so with racialized workers who need the jobs and don't complain because their families depend on them, but not with Catalans."

The meat sector, however, defends its contribution to the Olot economy and highlights the improvements it has implemented in the production chain. The Olot Meats slaughterhouse, for example, acknowledges that it has invested in internal training, workforce stabilization, and talent promotion. This is also true of the charcuterie company Noel, which highlights its efforts to develop quality work environments, fostering stability, internal promotion, ongoing training, and recognition. Along the same lines, Eudald Casas, manager of the cluster,Innovac, which brings together companies in the sector, emphasizes: "We have made progress in safety, sustainability, ventilation, and odor and heat reduction thanks to automation and artificial intelligence."

The City Council asks for fewer arrivals

The Olot City Council frames the city's growth within the context of the country's overall dynamics: "Catalonia welcomes more than 150,000 newcomers each year, and we doubt that this pace is sustainable enough to maintain quality services without planning," argues Mayor Agustí Arbós. "If we don't have quality services, it's impossible to generate good integration; we should reduce the intensity of this massive influx."

And regarding the economic model that demands a volume of low-skilled labor that the native population often can't cover, he concludes: "The idea of open borders without any kind of comprehensive training for newcomers doesn't add value; we must invest in vocational and qualified training that will make our economy prosper."