Spain adds more than 1 million foreigners to its workforce in a decade

The Spanish economy has added 1.4 million foreign workers in 10 years, new migration data shows.

Figures from Spain's Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration reveal that in June 2015 there were 1,668,099 foreigners legally working in Spain, 693,728 from EU countries and a further 974,371 (58.4 percent) from the rest of the world.

A decade later, there are now a total of 3,096,015 migrants working in Spain, over 1.4 million more. Nearly one million (958,455) have come from other EU countries, 38.2 percent more than decade ago, and more than two million (2,137,560) are non-EU nationals from around the rest of the world.

READ ALSO: Immigrants in Spain earn a third less than local workers

In other words, in the last 10 years, the number of foreigners in Spain has increased by 84.6 percent. In the case of non-EU migrants, the rise is a substantial 118 percent. This mirrors a surge in migration to Spain from non-Europeans, particularly those from Latin American countries, in recent years.

In terms of geographical spread, around two-thirds of non-EU workers who arrived in the last 10 years have settled in the four most populated regions of the country: 257,408 in Catalonia (22.1 percent); 219,868 (18.9 percent) in Madrid; 154,465 (13.3 percent) in Andalusia and 144,250 (12.4 percent) in Valencia.

Northwestern Spain leads the way in terms of relative increase in non-EU workers over the last decade with Galicia in first place (an increase of 233.7 percent), ahead of Castilla y León (209.4 percent) and Asturias (180.4 percent).

Other regions with above average increases are Valencia, Castile-La Mancha, Navarre, Cantabria, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Aragón and the Balearic Islands.

Below the average are La Rioja, the Canary Islands, Madrid, Extremadura, Catalonia and Murcia.

On a provincial level, four provinces were close to quadrupling their number of foreign workers: Zamora (271.8 percent more), Ourense (271.3 percent), A Coruña (268.5 percent) and Valladolid (261.8 percent), and in six others the rate more than tripled: Segovia, Lugo, Palencia, Huelva, Ávila and Burgos.

Only six provinces have not seen the number of non-EU workers double in the last decade: Barcelona, Las Palmas, Girona, Almería, Tarragona, Cáceres and Murcia.

This comes as immigration becomes an increasingly controversial topic in Spain. Recent race riots in small town Murcia contrast with the Spanish economy's underlying structural need for migrant workers.

A study by the Bank of Spain last year estimated that the country will need up to 25 million more immigrant workers by 2053 in order to combat demographic ageing and maintain the ratio of workers to pensioners in order to support the pension system.

Foreign workers have contributed 80 percent of GDP growth in Spain since 2019, according to the European Central Bank, highlighting that migrants in Spain are also workers and tax payers.

READ ALSO: Why Spain needs millions more migrants, not less