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Business Daily
Spain's economic case for more migration
00:17:28
Key sectors face hiring challenges amid a strong national economy
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- [00:00]
A
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B
Hello, you're listening to Business Daily with me, Ashish Sharma. I'm standing outside the Congress Building here in Spain's capital, Madrid. In the last year, the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been talking up the positives of migration into his country. My country has offered a path to regulate half a million undocumented migrants, half a million people we live with every day at the market, on the bus, at our children's school, people who care for our parents, work in the fields, who have built hand in hand with us the progress of our country, people who were already here, already part of our lives. In this program, I'll talk to some of the people that Sanchez is referring to and find out whether this process is as simple as the government seems to suggest.
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C
No country in the world could beat my country in bureaucracy, but I think Spain beats India hands down.
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B
The figures though, don't include asylum seekers as they must go through a separate procedure. I will also speak to the Spanish Commission for Refugees about the difficulties that asylum seekers face in getting accepted.
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D
So the criteria is quite high and I think that that's why the percentage is a little bit low.
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B
That's all coming up in today's Business Daily from the BBC. Spain is above all a welcoming country and this is the path we choose. Dignity, community and justice. You've just Heard the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announcing that his government will legalize half a million undocumented migrants as long as they have no criminal record and have been living in Spain for at least five months. That means before the end of 2025. The issue of migration, particularly illegal, has been a hot topic in many countries. The US President Donald Trump said it was one of the reasons he came back for a second term. Illegal migration is a financially expensive problem to resolve. The UK government recently agreed a deal with France worth more than half a billion dollars. Most of the half a million migrants in Spain come from Latin America. Many arrive with student or tourist visas, but then overstay and start working on the black market. But this figure also includes illegal migrants who mostly arrive on boats and come from Africa, the Middle east and South Asia. These migrants need help in learning the language and to assimilate into a different cult. Red Inkola is a non governmental organization based in the city of Valadolid. It works with all types of migrants, but mainly those who are undocumented, which means they can't work legally. Most come from Africa and South Asia. Are you attending the Spanish lessons in La Linkra?
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E
Yes, I just started. My name is Zainab Stitu and I'm from Morocco. Studied there, got a bachelor degree there in English studies. I immigrated to to Netherlands, worked there for a few months. I was not pleased with the weather and somehow how people were reacting. That's when I decided to come to Spain.
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B
Zaidev Stittu wanted to use her English and ended up working as a nanny in the Netherlands. As she has family in Spain, she had the option to come here too. And now she wants to stay and work. But as she doesn't have a work visa, it's. It would be illegal for her to take on a job without the right documents.
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E
I've been here for three months now. Yeah, and it's going great. Spanish people are very warm with each other. You know, you can have a little chit chat with someone while doing your groceries. So yeah, I feel like home in here.
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B
What made you want to leave Morocco in the first place?
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E
The educational system here is higher than what it is in Morocco because we study very hard. In order for you to get a bachelor degree or a master's degree, you really go through a lot. And at the same time we rarely, when we find, you know, job positions that value what you have as competence. Yeah, that was number one of things, why I decided to immigrate.
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B
What is your ambition? What is your hope and how can you achieve that?
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E
To be honest, it's not very bright and easy in here because as someone that is not legally staying here, you don't have much opportunities as long as you don't have the legal documents. But I'm getting to learn the language and thanks to these organizations, they have, for example, Redinkola, they help people a lot. They provide you free language classes. They do that with immigrants, you know, to help people find some doors to do better in their lives.
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B
If you speak languages, you will find.
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C
A job super easy if you have.
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B
That diploma that you are after. My interview with Zyneb, Lara Gonzalez from the NGO who'd sat next to me was, was so impressed by her English and high qualifications that she wasn't aware of that she immediately linked Zainab up with her NGOs Career Services to get her on a course that would fast track her because of her language skills. If she completes the course, Zainab has a better chance to get her paperwork and find a high level job because she has a skill set that is very much in demand in Spain. But why is Spain so keen to hurry up the process and allow migrants to work legally? Well, several factors are at play. Firstly, Spain's economy has been outstripping its European Union partners. Last year it grew by 3.5%. The areas of strong growth have been in tourism, hospitality and construction. Yet these are the sectors in which many Spanish people are not so keen to work in due to lower wages and temporary contracts. In order to keep these engines of the economy roaring, Spain wants to utilize its migrant population. Another reason is that Spain has an aid population with one of the slowest birth rates in Europe.
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C
I thought no country in the world could beat my country in bureaucracy, but I think Spain beats India hands down.
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B
Yet despite these plans, red tape is hindering the process.
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C
My name is Jojen Varghese. I decided to move here because eventually I want to come here with my family and settle down. We have work business in India. I have over 30 years of experience in business, in teaching in IT field. As an experiment, I thought I will first move with my younger son here who is going to school here, and eventually we will decide, you know, I mean, how it goes, and then we will move. I do not know where to start to express my frustration in terms of getting visas and different types. Tourist visa, no problem. From India, absolutely no problem. Any other type of visa, any other national visa? There's enormous impediment to even understand the process. I mean, if the aim of the country is to bring in migrants who can directly contribute to the growth of the economy. Then they need to have people in those countries who can actually explain their process and advise where potential migrants, you know, like me, I mean trained, qualified, experienced someone who can come in and you know, hit running, you know, I mean by setting up a business or creating more, you know, work opportunities for people, bringing even some money investment, come on.
- [08:57]
B
I mean, what are the problems then that you've been experiencing?
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C
They said, okay, apply for a non lucrative visa, which basically means that you show fund, enough fund that you have back home so that you can live off that here. And then you see, I mean whether you can change after one year to a work visa or you set up a business or you continue on your non lucrative visa.
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D
My name is Ignacio Gutierrez Tapia. I'm state coordinator for asylum seeker in Spanish Commission for Refugees. Well, the first thing that a person have to do when they arrive to Spain is the initial application and appointment. They will get a number and with this number they can start the procedure for further become an asylum seeker.
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B
And in terms of time, how long does that process take?
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D
The initial application it takes from one week and then you have the formal interview. The formal interview is an appointment that typically it takes like up to three, four days. But nowadays it's getting up to one month, two months. After the formal interview you have the documentation and waiting period. They call, okay, and they can prove that there is evidence of prosecution fear or they need legal aid. Then they reach the third stage, if you want to call it. It's called documentation and waiting period. In this case we have the office of asylum and refugee. They evaluate and decide if the person fulfill the criteria that they need to become an asylum seeker. The percentage is quite low. Normally most of the applications they don't get through the formal interview that they do before. It has to be very specific with all the details. So the criteria is quite high and I think that that's why the percentage is a little bit low.
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B
You're listening to Business Daily with me, Ashish Sharma.
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B
The Spanish government recently announced that it will legalize half a million undocumented migrants. It says this will help to keep its economy economy growing, especially in sectors where the local population is not so keen to work in. But not everyone in Spain agrees with the government's position. The far right anti immigration Vox party was accused of stoking riots that took place in July in which gangs clashed with largely Moroccan communities in the south of Spain, in the region of Andalucia, fighting against people, many who like them, were born in Spain. In congress, Vox has been warning about the loss of Spanish culture and way of life due to immigration, while the conservative Partido Popula recently proposed a points based system for migration aimed at bringing in people based on their skills, need and ideally from a background that can assimilate easily within a Spanish way of life.
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F
My name is Javier Zarzalejos, Member of the European Parliament for the Partido Popular European People's Party and I am the chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties.
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B
Justice and Internal affairs within the European union. Some Spanish MEPs worry that policies that welcome migrants could encourage more criminal activity. The latest figures published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, showed that there was a 6.9% increase in human trafficking in 2023.
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F
Immigration is not just about people entering either legally or illegally in our territory. We have seen other dimensions, other aspects of migration as an opportunity for criminal business. The traffic of human beings is a big criminal industry, big criminal business. We have seen that migration is also a tool which is used in hybrid strategies, so called weaponization of migration. We have seen that in the border between Finland and Russia, between Poland and Belarus, and even in the in Ceuta Melilla.
- [14:18]
B
But the impact of migrants coming in to boost the labor force is an attractive one. Do you feel in that sense Pedro Sanchez is kind of an outlier in that. In that sense the growth of the.
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F
Spanish economy over the last years is, I mean, very much linked to the contribution of immigrants. But I don't think that should be the way we can handle the economy just relying on workforce very much employed in Services and basically tourism. But certainly that is not the silver bullet for the economic growth. I mean, there are unemployment among migrants. I mean, we don't see that we have found the solution to all the economic problems or the. The economic engine has to be fed only by migrants.
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B
But immigrants are making a difference.
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G
One day around 4am, he had the idea to eat fish and chips. He googled fish and chips in Barcelona. There was none. So we said, okay, we need to open one. We are born in Pakistan, British ex colony. So we have fish and chips in. How do you say? Childhood.
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B
From opening one restaurant 10 years ago. Mani and his brother Majed alam today run 22 restaurants in Barcelona and Madrid. They're mainly fish and chip shops with the food having an extra taste based on Pakistani spices they add. But they also run a Pakistani and an Indian restaurant. Being Spanish nationals, they have no problem setting up their restaurants. But Mani says it's a different story when it comes to hiring staff.
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G
We have people from Filipinas, people from Venezuela, all around the world.
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B
We're sitting in one of your restaurants in Madrid. You got three people here working. Tell me a little bit about their background, because they look very Spanish to me.
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G
No. For example, the guy in the kitchen is from Philippines. There too. He's from Salamanca. Which could be kind of immigrant.
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F
No?
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G
No, but it's like from Salamanca. And Gerard is from Barcelona. Yeah, he's from Barcelona. And he was also immigrant.
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D
No, if you're from Barcelona, you see.
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B
Yourself as an immigrant.
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G
Right now it's really hard to first recruit people in hospitality. There's no people who want to work in hospitality. This is one of the first things to solve. A lot of times we have people with good experience, with no papers. They come in the door with the CV and you have the interview. Everything, everything goes good until the last part. And then they say, I'm no, I have no papers. Obviously we can't hire them because it's illegal sometimes. No, we contract. No, we did like twice. No offerta de contrado.
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B
Like offer a contract to become legal. First to take it, I have to.
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G
Come legal and then you can hire them. It takes six months. So how people can survive six months in Madrid or Barcelona without any payment? Not really possible.
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B
What would be your message then to someone like Pedro Sanchez?
- [17:41]
G
To make easier the process, they get papers and start working in short time. For me it's easy if there is jobs and there is people to work. Where is the problem now? Right now there's. The problem is like there's no people you can hire I guess a lot maybe this is my what I understand a lot of Spanish people, they don't want to work in hospitality. So at the end you go to Pakistani, Indian, Venezuela, Latin Americana. So a lot of people from all other nationalities right now compare when my father or my uncles came here in Spain is easier. Like if you have someone from, I would say Thailand even doesn't have to be Pakistan or Indian. But if you go to Thailand and you have a specific chef you want to hire because you wanted to open a Thai food restaurant, now it's easier than before in this case, I think it's great to have it. I don't know if it was this, if this was the question or no.
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B
The Spanish government's legalization announcement has been criticized by its opponents. The far right Vox Party says this is the beginning of the loss of Spain's cultural identity. The Partido Popular warns of the wider impact for the European Union. The process for legalization is set to begin in April. But given how burdensome Spain's bureaucracy has been so far for migrants and asylum seekers, many who are expected to benefit from this are understandably wary of just how quickly their status will be resolved. Thank you for listening to this edition of Business Daily with me, Ashish Arma. You can find more episodes wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
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A
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