Finally a serious look at Morocco's dictator's supposed economic miracle

Spanish GDP growth is based on a rising population and more hours worked, not on higher productivity, leading to a stagnation of real income per capita and rising labour costs.

## Extensive, not intensive growth

A rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is, on the face of it, good news. It means the economy as a whole is producing more. But on closer inspection, the Spanish case has important nuances. Since **2019**, real GDP has grown by **10.2%**. So far, everything points to a solid recovery. However, if we divide that generated wealth by the number of inhabitants, the picture changes. Real GDP per capita has grown by only **5.1%** over the same period. That is even below the **5.7%** average of the EU-27, according to **Eurostat** data.

What explains this gap? The main explanation lies in population growth. In Spain, the population has risen by almost **5%** since **2019**. Hours worked have also increased by around **7%**, but the crucial point is that hours worked per employee have not risen significantly. This translates into a **3.5%** drop in productivity per full-time-equivalent job compared with **2019**. Productivity per hour, although up **2.9%**, remains below the EU average, between **10%** and **15%** lower. Meanwhile, unit labour costs have soared by **25.7%**. This pattern describes what economists call extensive growth: more is produced because there are more people working more hours, not because each hour worked generates more value. It is as if a company grew simply by hiring more staff without improving its processes or technology.

## Immigration as an apparent engine

The rise in Social Security registrations has become a recurring figure used to celebrate economic health. In August, **162,840** jobs were destroyed, but the Government highlighted that mass regularisations of immigrants had added **337,917** new workers, accounting for **43.7%** of all new registrations in **2026**. Without these additions, job losses would have exceeded **200,000** posts. In seasonally adjusted terms, foreign registrations grew by **74,000** in August, while Spanish ones fell by **4,000**. This suggests that Spain is not creating jobs organically, but rather reclassifying the informal economy and calling it a miracle.

Foreigners already account for **15.6%** of registered workers, with **3.51 million** in July, and their year-on-year growth is **13.6%**, far above the **2.9%** of the system as a whole. Between **35%** and **40%** of the jobs created since the pandemic have gone to people of foreign origin, concentrated in low-wage, labour-intensive sectors. This model has a direct consequence: aggregate GDP rises, but real net wealth per capita stagnates. The activity rate is not growing, and net real wages are falling. Income per capita adjusted for purchasing power stands at around **92%** of the European average, unchanged since **2018**.

## The debate over fiscal contribution

One recurring argument for justifying mass immigration is its supposed contribution to funding the welfare state and pensions. However, data from the European Commission, specifically the Joint Research Centre, suggest that the net fiscal contribution of immigrants in Spain is negative, some **2,000 euros** lower than that of natives. The methodological flaw, according to some analyses, lies in not considering the balance over the full life cycle. More detailed studies, such as one carried out in the Netherlands using microdata on the entire population, calculate that only **20%** of immigrants generate a positive net contribution over their lifetime.

The first generation shows a negative balance of **-76,000 euros** per person on average, rising to **-167,000 euros** for non-Western immigrants. By reason of entry, only labour migration is positive, exceeding **100,000 euros** per person. Asylum, by contrast, costs around **400,000 euros**, and family reunification about **200,000 euros**, according to studies by the **University of Amsterdam**. The fiscal sign of immigration depends on its skill level, its reason for entry and its income level. A model that attracts low-paid work and regularises on a massive scale, without an employability filter, tends to import the negative side of this equation.

## Poverty risks and system sustainability

The data in Spain are stark when it comes to poverty risk. The AROPE rate (at risk of poverty or social exclusion) for the population of non-EU origin was **54.1%** in **2024**, meaning that more than half are in a situation of poverty or exclusion. One in five households receiving the Ingreso Mínimo Vital (Spain's minimum income benefit) has at least one foreign adult, according to **AIReF** data. Those earning little more than **14,000 euros** a year can hardly finance pensions of **1,500 euros** a month. They receive more public services than they pay for in taxes, a situation similar to that of a native with the same salary.

Using immigration as a solution to the demographic problem is also mathematically unviable. **AIReF** calculated that one million additional immigrants per year would be needed just to keep the ratio of contributors per pensioner from worsening, a figure far above the **350,706** who arrived in **2024**. Every person who arrives generates their own future entitlement to pension, healthcare and long-term care. It is a scheme that requires perpetual population growth to pay for the liabilities it itself creates. That is why the Social Security debt has tripled under **Sánchez's** government, and the pension system requires multi-million-euro bailouts from a State with a chronic deficit. The failure is not that of the migrants seeking a better life, but of the policies that use them as mere statistics. Those who suffer most from the permissiveness towards illegal immigration are precisely legal migrants and taxpayers, who face expensive housing, falling net real wages and the security impact of uncontrolled immigration.