A group of Sub-Saharan African men play bingo in a hotel conference room near the northern Spanish city of León.
They laugh and celebrate when their number is called, but many of these asylum seekers have moving stories.
Among them is Michael, who fled Ghana to escape a violent feud that left his sister and father dead. After traveling overland to Morocco, he paid a human trafficker to put him on an inflatable boat full of people that took him to the Canary Islands.
“I was so happy because I knew all my problems, and the people who tried to kill me had my back,” he says. “Because once you are in Spain, you are safe.”
In Ghana he worked as a petrol station attendant and shopkeeper. He has also started studying Human Resource Management, which he hopes to continue in Spain once he has settled.
“Spain is one of the most respected countries in the world,” he says. “Being here is an opportunity for me.”
About 170 asylum seekers are staying in this hotel in the city of Villaquilambre, which has been converted into a migrant center.
They are among the many thousands of people who take the maritime route between the African coast and Spain every year.
More than this year so far 42,000 undocumented migrants have arrived in Spain, an increase of 59% compared to 2023, with the vast majority having undertaken the dangerous crossing to the Canary Islands.
The archipelago’s difficulties in controlling these large numbers have contributed to a fierce political debate over immigration, mirroring that in many other European countries. In Spain, the controversy is largely driven by the far-right Vox party, which often describes the trend as a ‘political trend’ “invasion”.
However, the arrivals have also underlined an important potential source of manpower for an economy facing severe demographic challenges.
Javier Díaz-Giménez, an economics professor at the IESE business school and an expert on pensions, says a baby boom that lasted from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s has created a generation of Spaniards moving toward retirement age. and the ‘baby crash’ that followed means there aren’t enough workers to replace them.
“The next 20 years will be crucial as more and more people retire,” he says. “According to the most recent demographic scenario, 14.1 million people will retire during that period.”
One way to tackle the labor shortage, he says, is to emulate the kind of economic model of Japan, which has a similarly low birth rate, by investing heavily in algorithms and machines. The obvious alternative to that is immigration.
“If you want to grow GDP, if you want to pay the pensions for all the retired baby boomers, you’re going to have to grow GDP in a different way than how we’re growing it now, because there’s not going to be as many people there unless we bring them through immigration,” adds Prof. Díaz-Giménez.
The Spanish central bank has provided figures on the expected labor shortage. A report published in April said the country will need this 25 million immigrants in the next 30 years.
Spain’s left-wing government has also made the economic case for immigrants, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez describing them as representatives of “wealth, development and prosperity” for his country during a recent tour of Mauritania, Gambia and Senegal.
“The contribution of migrant workers to our economy is fundamental, as is the sustainability of our social security system and pensions,” he said.
Mr Sánchez’s coalition hopes that a proposal to grant the status of up to 500,000 undocumented migrants, mainly from Latin America, will pass through parliament. Spain has seen nine such mass regularizations in its democratic era, the most recent in 2005 under a previous government led by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.
However, the country’s economic needs contrast with ordinary Spaniards’ perception of immigration. A new poll shows that 41% of people are “very concerned” by the phenomenon, making it their fifth biggest concern after inflation, housing, inequality and unemployment.
While only 9% of Spaniards associate immigrants with economic progress, 30% associate them with insecurity, and 57% believe there are too many of them.
Villaquilambre, meanwhile, is an example of how undocumented newcomers can integrate into the workforce.
The asylum seekers here are allowed to work for six months after arrival in Spain.
“Before they are allowed to work, we place great emphasis on learning Spanish and offering them training and lessons on avoiding risks,” says Dolores Queiro of the San Juan de Dios Foundation, the non- governmental organization that manages the migrant center in Villaquilambre.
“As the date approaches for them to start working, we contact different companies – and they contact us too – and we start looking for jobs for them.”
Companies are reaching out, she says, “because they know we have people here who want to work.”
Makan, from Mali, has just started working for a local company, GraMaLeon, which makes walls, bathrooms and kitchen countertops from marble and granite. Every day he covers the short distance from the hotel to the factory on an electric scooter.
“I’m glad I can work,” he says in halting Spanish, after completing a shift dragging slabs of marble through the factory.
Ramiro Rodríguez Alaez, co-owner of the company, which employs about 20 people, says finding workers is not easy.
“We need a lot of manpower in this profession. But it’s tough, it gets cold, you have to lift heavy weights, so it’s not a job that a lot of young people here want to do.
“There are not many companies here in this industry, but the companies that are there all need people. We’re all looking for people locally, but we can’t find them.”
He adds: “Immigrants are an important source of manpower for us.”
