Shorouk Express
In just one year, around 200,000 foreigners have chosen to move to and take up jobs in rural Spain, helping to combat the problems of so-called ‘Empty Spain’.
Depopulation has been an increasing issue in Spain over the last decades and villages across the country’s interior have been trying to come up with various schemes to attract new blood, from paying people to move there to providing accommodation and high-speed internet.
READ ALSO: How to find a Spanish village that will help you move there
According to Spain’s Ministry for Territorial Policy, 90 percent of the country’s population lives in just 1,500 towns and cities, occupying 30 percent of the land.
The other 10 percent of Spain’s population is distributed across the remaining 70 percent of the territory, much of which has come to be known as ‘Empty Spain’.
There is also a big disparity between the interior and the coast, with around 60 percent of the population of Spain living in coastal areas.
Despite high unemployment rates in Spain, certain sectors and industries are being forced to look abroad to fill vacancies as they can’t find enough locals to fill the positions. In 2022, the country changed its migration laws so that it would become easier to recruit more foreigners from overseas for industries with labour shortages.
Therefore, Spain is beginning to see a shift in where foreigners look for jobs and choose to settle.
There are currently 2.84 million people who were born abroad who are now working in the country, which represents 13.8 percent of the total number of employed people.
READ ALSO: Spain’s population hits 49 million for the first time in its history
According to the latest report from Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, the number of workers from other countries increased between January 2024 and January 2025 by 8.03 percent, which equals 211,000 more workers.
The most interesting fact about this workforce increase is that in ‘Empty Spain’, the hike reaches 12.36 percent and goes up further still to 14.68 percent in the four regions in the northwest of the peninsula – Galicia, Asturias, Castilla y León and Cantabria.
READ ALSO: How Spaniards are helping to save the country’s 4,200 villages at risk of extinction
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The total number of foreigners going to work in the northwest of Spain has increased by 17.95 percent in Asturias, by 14.73 percent in Galicia, by 13.94 percent in Castilla y León and 13.78 percent in Cantabria.
Provinces in the northwest of Spain have in fact appeared in the top three positions with highest increase in foreign workers for the first time. The places there where they increased the most were Zamora (20.96 percent), Asturias (17.95 percent), Valladolid (17.45 percent), A Coruña (17.06 percent), León (16.71 percent), Palencia (16.50 percent), Ourense (15.82 percent), Lugo (14.94 percent), Cantabria (13.78 percent) and Salamanca (13.37 percent).
Looking at the data from the last four years the rise of foreigners seen in the northwest of the country is even more striking – a total of 68.75 percent in Galicia, 64.21 percent in Asturias, 53.52 percent in Castilla y León and 52.19 percent in Cantabria.
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According to Ramón Pradera, founder and director of the Vente a vivir a un pueblo (Come and live in a village) platform, interest in moving to small towns and villages is “very high,” especially among citizens from Latin America, he told Spanish news agency EFE.
Pradera believes that one of the main reasons foreigners choose to move to small towns is the possibility of accessing more affordable and often better quality housing compared to the options available in cities.
The job market in these areas also offers opportunities in other sectors such as hospitality, agriculture, mechanics and elderly care.
READ ALSO: 20 business ideas that can work in rural Spain
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Other regions in the rest of the country, however, still attract more foreign workers due to the sheer number of job positions available there, but the numbers haven’t grown as much in relative terms as in the northwest.
The regions that attracted most foreign workers in 2024 were Catalonia with 660,251, Madrid with 598,205, Andalusia with 358,525 and Valencia with 333,248.
Interestingly, in Andalusia, the numbers of foreign workers have increased exponentially in two of its most depopulated provinces – Jaén, by 57.24 percent in one year, and Córdoba with an increase of 21.56 percent.
READ ALSO: How ‘Empty Spain’ is now a political party
