The Spanish government approved this Tuesday (26) a reform to facilitate the regularization of immigrants with the aim of helping the composition of sectors that have idle vacancies. Despite suffering from high unemployment by European standards, the country is unable to supply the workforce in areas such as tourism, construction and agriculture.
The text will benefit irregular immigrants who have been in Spanish territory for more than two years. With the new status, they will be able to take specialization courses in the most needy areas of labor and legally compete for vacancies in the job market.
According to the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, the reform also aims to establish an orderly and safe migration. “[As medidas] aim to improve the Spanish migration model and its procedures, in many cases slow and inadequate, which generates prolonged periods of irregularity, with high social and economic costs,” the ministry said in a statement.
The reform should simplify access to employment for foreign students, who will be able to work up to 30 hours a week and then enter the labor market without having to fulfill a waiting period. The family reunification process should be simplified, as well as the granting of work visas in sectors with greater demand for labor.
The reform was approved by the Council of Ministers and will not need to pass through Parliament’s scrutiny.
Spain currently has an unemployment rate above 13%, one of the highest rates in the European Union. The lack of labor in some sectors of the economy, however, is often pointed out by companies as a limiting factor for growth.
Faced with the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Spain approved, at the beginning of the year, a labor reform that seeks to combat precariousness in the country’s jobs. The new regulation gives unions more power, limits temporary contracts and forces outsourced companies to adapt workers’ terms to those where they work.
