Spain's Galicia construction sector seeks 4,000-5,000 workers

Vázquez Reino: "We need to fill 4,000-5,000 positions"

Galicia lacks the manpower to build what is planned. This is the thesis Vázquez Reino sums up in one sentence: "We need to fill between 4,000 and 5,000 positions; whoever trains today works immediately." This clashes with another data point raised by other participants: Spain, they argue, is one of the European countries with the highest unemployment. Both can be true at once, and the disagreement starts exactly there.

What lies behind the 5,000 positions

The sector is not talking about a temporary peak, but an impending generational shift. The generations dominating the trade are about to retire and are, it is argued, among the best-trained in decades. When they leave, no one appears behind them, and the work remains hard. The official version is that there is a shortage of trained workers and that those who train get jobs immediately.

Some argue this diagnosis is convenient because it avoids the uncomfortable question. If the problem were only one of quantity, it would suffice to pay more and wait. If it is about conditions, the discourse changes direction: what is being asked is to import what is not accepted here at that price.

If there is unemployment, why don't candidates appear?

Because the mismatch, according to this reading, is not in the number of people but in the price and conditions. There are available workers, some participants defend, but not at any salary: if the offer does not compete with what is paid in other activities or with the cost of settling down, no one applies. Others argue the opposite: job seekers do not exist in Galicia, and those who do exist do not want this trade. The discussion, fundamentally, is about who has to move first.

Raising salaries to attract workers from other Spanish provinces is the question left hanging in the air. No one answers it with a figure.

The calculation that turns a €1,500 salary into €400

Here is the crux. According to a calculation circulating in the debate, with €1,500 gross per month, if rent takes €900 and expenses another €200, the worker is left with €400 to survive in a city that is not their own. For that, many conclude it is not worth packing bags: they stay in their homeland, do a couple of odd jobs, and earn the same. The figure is repeated in strained areas where a room already costs that much. The calculation, broken down item by item, is less spectacular than it seems and far more devastating.

The counterpoint comes from another participant: raising the salary would be useless if the landlord captures that increase anyway. And in the middle, 40% of each salary goes to taxes and social security contributions, according to another forum user, which also enters the account of the person signing the payslip.

Housing, the bottleneck no one wants to look at

Even if salaries rose, some warn that the increase would be eaten up by rent. In areas with construction activity, accommodation has become the real filter: shared rooms, hot beds, and formulas bordering on substandard housing for those arriving from elsewhere with nothing but their clothes. This is the scenario many describe as a trap: attracting labor to a market where sleeping eats the salary. If housing is not addressed, the problem shifts, it is not solved.

Who pays for training a bricklayer?

Training is another open front. Subsidized courses mainly reach active workers, while those unemployed have to dig into their pockets, a paradox frequently pointed out. The proposal circulating from within the sector involves internal academies in companies, with retention clauses or penalties to prevent a company from training a worker only for a competitor to take them. Without this, every euro invested in teaching a trade is a euro given away to the neighbor.

The political tug-of-war: who brings in the workers

The issue has ceased to be technical and is openly political. The debate cites employer associations demanding quotas and migration flows: the British one asks for more immigrants and the Basque one speaks of a "great retirement." From another flank, the regularization of half a million people attributed to Sumar's space is brought up. And from a third, the answer is that the priority is workers already here who do not accept certain conditions. Each places the problem in someone else's court.

With current salaries and housing as they are, the reasonable forecast is that the gap will eventually be filled by outside workers, but that the solution will last only as long as the first contract. If the cost of sleeping and the way to train replacements are not touched, in a few years the same sector will again say it cannot find anyone.