Spain's government blames immigrants for unemployment

Spain's government blames immigrants for unemployment, but the data say otherwise

The Spanish government has put forward an explanation for unemployment: immigration. Or at least that is what the new official line suggests. The very report published by El Mundo says exactly the opposite: employment is growing thanks to the foreign population. The contradiction is baffling: if foreigners create jobs, how can they be the cause of unemployment?

The figures circulating are huge: 1.3 million people regularised, another million and a half through family reunification, 700,000 arrivals a year. Some see in this the cause of the pressure on public services and housing. Others point out that those same figures are what fuel consumption and overall employment.

The pyramid scheme of growth

The hard-line camp does not believe immigration drives unemployment up. It believes the economic model is a pyramid scheme: without half a million arrivals a year, consumption dries up, jobs are destroyed and real per-capita output falls. The flip side is wage dumping, more expensive housing and strained public services. The day the tap is turned off, this analysis holds, the whole thing collapses.

Against that, the aggregate data show a stubborn reality: employment keeps rising. Whether that rise is sustainable or an accounting illusion is precisely what divides the analysts.

The unemployment nobody fully explains

With unemployment close to 10%, there is little room for triumphalism. Immigration has become the wildcard used to explain what economic policy fails to solve. In the short term, the narrative may work. How long it lasts once the next labour figures change the picture remains to be seen. If history is any guide, the message will be adapted to the data. The only certainty is that unemployment will remain the weak spot, with or without a scapegoat.