The PP’s shift in its discourse on immigration has provoked in recent weeks contradictions with the autonomies it governs. While Alberto Núñez Feijóo has hardened his positions, in the face of the resistance of Vox in the polls and the emergence of Alvise Pérez in national politics, some of his barons have asked the central government for greater facilities to be able to hire migrants due to the lack of workers in certain sectors.
Towards the end of the summer, the opposition leader accused the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, of having favoured a “call effect” with his tour of several African countries to establish measures to control immigration. Feijóo had already launched a harsh discourse against immigration during the Catalan campaign, when he associated this phenomenon with squatting in houses, and at the end of July his party reversed the reform of the immigration law that sought to establish a mechanism for distributing immigrant minors from the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla to other communities.
The PP, as in other areas, faces constant contradictions on the issue of immigration. Just a few months ago, the party voted in favor of Congress beginning the processing of a popular legislative initiative for the regularization of almost half a million migrants, although during that same debate it specified that it would modify the text.
A few days ago, the PP gave details of this modification to introduce, as the extreme right usually does when it talks about this issue, links with crime.
“One by one, case by case, knowing your situation. Those who work, those who come to undertake a life project in Spain will see their reality included in this bill. Those who, in other circumstances, whether they have a criminal record or come to this country for other reasons, obviously should not be arrested,” party spokesman Borja Sémper said at a press conference in early September.
During his tour of Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia, the president of the government announced a “circular migration” program, a mechanism for hiring workers in their country of origin in sectors that have more difficulty filling vacancies, such as agriculture and construction. Once the contract – fixed and discontinuous -, which cannot last more than nine months each year, is over, the employee must return home.
A program that is not new, that PP governments have used in the past and that Feijóo himself defended until Sánchez’s trip. Despite this, the party came out swinging after the president’s words. “It is a clear call for illegal immigration” that causes “hundreds of deaths” for which Sánchez is “co-responsible”, said the parliamentary spokesman, Miguel Tellado, in an interview with esRadio. “It is completely absurd,” he added.
PP governments ask for facilities to hire migrants
But as is the case with other issues such as regional financing, one thing is the position of the party at the state level and another is the needs of the governments in the territories. And in this gap, contradictions also arise. Autonomies such as Galicia, La Rioja, Extremadura and Castile and León have requested in recent weeks greater flexibility to regularize migrants who can occupy jobs with a higher level of vacancies.
The number of unfilled jobs has increased in Spain in recent years and reached record levels for at least a decade. According to the National Institute of Statistics, with data from the first quarter of this year, there were 149,962 vacant jobs in Spain. At the end of 2023, the largest gaps were in public administration and “wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles.
In an attempt to fill these gaps in the labor market – a phenomenon that is increasing with the growth of economic activity and the improvement of wages – some autonomies are asking the central government for greater facilities for hiring migrants or are implementing their own programs in this regard.
The Ministry of Social Security and Inclusion, under José Luis Escriva, promoted a reform of the regulations of the Immigration Law that sought to facilitate access to the labor market for thousands of foreigners in Spain, through the reduction of procedures and the creation of new channels to apply for work permits. The regulatory change was approved with the aim of expanding hiring at origin, allowing foreign students to work, making business promotion by small foreign entrepreneurs more flexible and, finally, creating a new way for people in an irregular situation to access positions by exercising their training in sectors that need personnel.
The ministry, now headed by Elma Saiz, has been working for months on a new amendment to the regulations. The public hearing period for the presentation of the allegations ended on September 10. The new text seeks, among other things, to ease the bureaucratic obstacles that immigrants face in accessing residency or a work contract.
Galicia
This is one of the ways in which the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, recently insisted when presenting the expansion of the Galician training programme. The new edition will be endowed with one million euros and should reach around 150 people. Rueda, who described the arrival of migrants in Galicia within the distribution between territories as a “tide without criteria”, affirms that the professional training formula “works” and “must be part of the solution” that his government defends.
“The program has been very well received and more than a hundred migrants have participated in this first edition and have received training in hospitality, social health, construction or rural jobs, which are the sectors in which they can have the most employability. 100% have obtained a residence permit thanks to this roots training program. And today, 70% of them have permanent employment,” Rueda said on September 2 when announcing the expansion of the program.
The Xunta considers it necessary to make training more flexible as a way to regularize migrants, but “as long as this process is linked to training for employment and with comprehensive support” to seek “the complete integration of the person in the territory.”
The claims made by the Galician government regarding the new regulations include more flexible requirements for migrants wishing to enter the labour market in sectors where it is difficult to find work, such as fishing or agriculture. It also calls for “more reasonable deadlines” in the processing of files by the central government.
Extremadura
The Junta de Extremadura is considering formally requesting greater facilities for hiring foreign workers from the central government. This is a request that the main agricultural organizations have forwarded to the Minister of Economy, Guillermo Santamaría, who has promised to defend it in Madrid since it is a state competence.
There are, however, disagreements among businessmen. Although they all advocate filling the labor shortage with migrants, Apag Asaja and Asaja Cáceres focus on unemployment assistance, which they say discourages hiring, and UPA-UCE proposes hiring migrants who are already settled.
But it is not only the countryside that sees immigration as a solution to the labor shortage. Construction employers in Extremadura have also demanded the integration of migrant workers. According to the sector, 9,000 professionals are needed in this community, which is causing a slowdown in the work already underway and a reduction in planned promotions.
The president of the Confederation of Construction Extremeña, Carlos Izquierdo de Tapia, pleaded in a meeting this summer with the government delegate to “legalize the situation of these people” in order to hire them and added that, although “there are those who criticize that they come [las personas migrantes] Others are looking to integrate them into society and the sector clearly needs workers because it is a serious problem.”
La Rioja
In the government of La Rioja, Gonzalo Capellán, it is evident that there is a lack of labor in some sectors, especially in those related to important agricultural campaigns for La Rioja such as the harvest of fruits, peppers or grape harvests, so he considers it necessary to review the current regulations.
Once the reform project promoted by the Ministry has been analyzed, transferred from the Local Government, the Department of Education and Employment will meet with the sector to agree on a series of contributions to facilitate hiring and ensure the necessary presence of labor.
“The agricultural sector is special and therefore the treatment must be equally special and adapted to the circumstances of the agricultural campaigns,” these sources say.
Castile and Leon
Castilla y León has also recently addressed the issue of immigration, in terms similar to those of its colleagues in Extremadura and Galicia. “We are clearly in favor of people who come from outside Spain to Spain being associated with the world of work,” said the spokesman for the regional executive, Carlos Fernández Carriedo, this week, to advocate for “orderly immigration” with people who come from outside Spain. They arrive with “a work contract” and allow them to “integrate socially,” with the aim of covering the demand for workers in jobs that are difficult to fill.
The councilor explained that the “reality” is that there are “thousands of jobs” in Castile and Leon that are vacant and that the companies themselves report this lack to the regional administration. Therefore, to respond to this demand, he called for an “effort” both in Castile and Leon and at the national level to “improve the training and qualification of workers to occupy this position.” “This issue is a national debate that will have to be discussed when appropriate,” say sources from the Vice Presidency of Castilla y León.
With information from Santiago Manchado, Olivia García, Alba Camazón, Erena Calvo, Javier Ramajo and Galicia edition.
