By Corina Pons<\/p>\n
MADRID, May 22 (Reuters) – Spain will introduce a plan to match migrants to jobs under a programme to grant legal status to around half a million undocumented workers to help \u200cdrive economic growth, the country’s top immigration official told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The programme, announced in January, has been criticised \u200cby far-right leaders in Spain and across Europe, but the Socialist-led coalition government argues migration will help the Spanish economy continue to outpace \u200bits European peers by creating a younger workforce as the general population ages.<\/p>\n
In a Supreme Court hearing on Friday after far-right groups filed an injunction to halt the regularisation, government lawyers said 549,596 people had applied in the programme’s first month, slightly exceeding the initially expected demand, according to state broadcaster TVE, which cited unidentified sources.<\/p>\n
The government has already granted 91,505 \u200ctemporary work permits, TVE reported. The \u2060ministry declined to confirm the figures to Reuters.<\/p>\n
Secretary of State for Migration Pilar Cancela said in an earlier interview the state could handle up to one million applications, noting the \u2060requests would outnumber permits granted. The authorities also have a plan to help migrants find formal jobs, she added.<\/p>\n
Cancela said it was a smart approach to immigration, both humanitarian and economic, which would make public services and pensions more sustainable.<\/p>\n
Spain needs approximately \u200b2.4 \u200bmillion more people paying into social security over the next \u200bdecade to sustain its welfare state, according to \u200cofficial estimates.<\/p>\n
Think-tank Funcas estimates there are around 840,000 undocumented migrants working off the books, mainly from Latin America.<\/p>\n
OUT OF THE SHADOWS<\/p>\n
The job-matching strategy aims to move thousands out of the shadow economy to stem labour shortages in key sectors.<\/p>\n
“It’s a huge opportunity to harness the potential of all these people who are already helping to build the country alongside us, often working in precarious conditions,” Cancela said, adding “real integration” would follow once they find a formal job.<\/p>\n
The \u200cMigration Ministry will conduct a voluntary survey of those granted provisional \u200bwork permits to understand their skills and where they would like \u200bto work.<\/p>\n
The government is partnering with business groups \u200bin the construction, tourism, transport and care services sectors to assess labour demand and coordinate \u200cwith regularised migrants looking for work.<\/p>\n
A research paper by \u200bEsade Business School warned that \u200ba previous programme to regularise migrants in 2005 led to some job losses in the informal sector.<\/p>\n
It recommended more labour inspections and programmes to support the transition to formal employment.<\/p>\n
Cancela said the ministry’s plan \u200bwould also be accompanied by increased labour \u200cinspections.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s also a major opportunity to bring certain situations to light, because when people \u200bcome forward in the regularisation process, we will learn about their circumstances,” she said.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Corina \u200bPons; Editing by David Latona, Sharon Singleton and Gus Trompiz)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Corina Pons MADRID, May 22 (Reuters) – Spain will introduce a plan to match migrants to jobs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14428,14426,14427,17,3852,14354],"class_list":["post-28271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-coalition-government","tag-immigration-official","tag-pilar-cancela","tag-spain","tag-undocumented-migrants","tag-undocumented-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}