Spain’s leftist government is pushing for more migrant workers and an illegal aliens amnesty to fill gaps in the workforce, despite the country having one of the highest rates of unemployment in the European Union.
The Spanish Council of Ministers adopted a reform this week that will provide measures to “encourage regular, orderly and safe immigration,” according to Minister of Social Security José Luis Escriva, with the document facilitating the so-called regularisation of illegals who have lived in Spain for more than two years.
The new rules will allow illegals who have been in Spain for the designated period of time to both legally apply for and get a job in Spain, as well as be eligible for training in sectors that are short on staff and have many vacancies, broadcaster TF1 reports.
Foreign students studying in the country will also be given more leeway to work as much as 30 hours per week and to fully enter the labour market after they have lived in Spain for three years.
So-called family unification, or chain migration, will also be made available to migrants working in certain sectors, and the process to have family members brought to Spain is to be simplified.
Spain is relaxing its immigration rules despite having the highest unemployment rates in all of the European Union — 13.1 per cent in May, according to EU statistics, with youth unemployment even higher at 27.1 per cent.
The Socialist Party-led government’s efforts to boost immigration and regularise illegals comes as Germany’s also Socialist Party-led government is making moves to allow an estimated 130,000 failed asylum seekers to gain residency status for a year, while migrants with “tolerated” status could be made eligible for permanent residency after living in Germany for five years.
Exceptions to the scheme exist, however, with any migrants convicted of “serious” offences or using multiple identities supposedly not eligible for the scheme.