Why the Basque Country is the best place to work in Spain

Spain is known among many Spaniards and foreigners as a country which offers great quality of life, but which is generally not the best for career progression.

However, that’s not true everywhere in Spain, as some regions are much better than others for finding and getting on in the world of work.

Of all the Spanish regions perhaps the Basque Country is most famed for being different from the rest of the country: language, culture, nature and even people’s character (although all autonomous communities in Spain have their own idiosyncrasies). 

And when it comes to work matters it’s no exception. A 2023 study has backed this up by revealing the five best regions to work in Spain — the Basque Country came out on top.

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Researchers looked at an array of metrics in the employment market, encompassing job security, wages and benefits, work duration and work-life balance, safety and security, and training and motivation. 

Putting all this data together, the Basque Country came first, ahead of even the capital Madrid, followed by Catalonia, Navarre and La Rioja. In fact, there seems to be a clear geographic divide here as the worst performing regions were found to be Extremadura, the Canary Islands and Andalusia. 

One could say that the Basque Country has a more ‘Northern European’ approach to employment matters, proving itself to be more efficient, productive, at times less bureaucratic and with an economy that’s more focused on industry and R&D than tourism and services as is the case in most of Spain. 

So perhaps its no surprise than the Basque Country often tries to take matters into its own hands. The Lehendakari government recently convinced the Spanish government to allow it to process on its own work permits for foreigners, and for some time it’s been pushing to handle the recognition of foreign qualifications from its migrant population, a process that takes years in Spain currently and keeps highly-skilled foreigners out of work.

Here is a breakdown of why the Basque Country is the best region for career development in Spain.

Salaries and wealth

The Basque Country is the wealthiest region of Spain by some measures, and with that comes higher salaries than the rest of Spain.

According to the Spanish regional accounts, the highest GDP per capita is in Madrid, followed by the Basque Country and Navarre, three of the four regions with the best working conditions in the country.

However, according to data available from Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE), Basques have the highest rate of disposable income per capita with €20,479 (29.5 percent above the average in Spain) and the highest salaries in the whole country (€31,064 gross a year).

READ ALSO: What are the pros and cons of life in the Basque Country?

Low unemployment

The Basque Country also has the lowest unemployment rate in Spain.  According to the latest INE data, the unemployment rate is 7.7 percent in the northern region.

Though that may seem high to foreigners, it’s almost half the national average (12.2 percent) and far lower than in other parts of the country such as Ceuta (30,0 percent), Melilla (29,6 percent) and Andalucia (18,2 percent). 

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Best at vocational training

 a large part of this could be explained by the fact that the Basque Country has the best vocational training system (known as FP or formación profesional in Spanish) in the country — with a 85.6 percent employability rate for those embarking on courses which teach them skilled crafts, according to the study.

In fact, vocational training in the Basque Country is so good that it’s become a model for other regions to emulate and which inspired the vocational training law promoted by the national government. 

The key is that the Basque model manages to place its students with local businesses, always keeping in mind the needs of the local labour market.

An industrial powerhouse

Perhaps then it’s no surprise that the Basque Country is also known as Spain’s industrial powerhouse. 

Much of this economic strength comes from a centuries-long industrial history in the Basque Country, as well as a bespoke fiscal agreement with the national government that gives the region greater control over taxes. In recent decades, it’s overtaken Catalonia to emerge as arguably Spain’s real industrial powerhouse.

Industry is still the main economic motor in the Basque economy, making up almost a quarter (23.1 percent) of GDP according to INE data from 2022, meaning it’s the region with the second largest share behind only neighbours Navarre. It also has a high percentage of people working in industry, 18.5 percent, which is well above the national average (11 percent).

READ ALSO: Why the Basque Country is Spain’s industrial powerhouse

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Highly unionised region

The Basque Country is also a highly unionised region that’s informally known as the strike capital of Spain, proving as such that high salaries and strong labour rights can go hand in hand. 

According to figures from the Basque government’s Labour Relations Council (CRL), in 2023 almost half (46 percent) of the total strikes called in Spain took place in the Basque Country.

In 2022, that figure was 50.36 percent. That is to say, a region with less than 5 percent of the country’s total population had half of its strikes. More specifically, 342 of the 679 strikes that took place in Spain in 2022 were in the Basque Country alone, according to data from the Ministry of Labour.

Working in unionised sectors with a strong strike tradition surely plays a role in the Basque Country’s high wage, high employment economy. Of course, there’s also Mondragón Corporation, the world’s largest co-op, if you were in any doubt that the world of work (and life more generally) in the Basque Country are different.

READ ALSO: Why are the Basque Country and Catalonia richer than the rest of Spain?