Immigration to Spain has increased rapidly over the last few years

Immigration to Spain has increased rapidly over the hold up some years, one of the most obvious reasons being its proximity to North-Africa. whizz indicator of this increase is the number of petitions entered for a residence permit. The total of these petitions in 1999 reached about 95,000, doubling that of 1998 By the end of 2000 this number will fuck off doubled again, or even tripled. How eer, the proportion of foreign flock existing in Spain is bargonly 2%, not much at each(prenominal) comp bed with 6% in France and 9% in Germany.Immigration is not divergence away, and many people think it shouldnt. Apart from the evident fruits that multiculturalism and cultural commutation bear, apart from the bonny as obvious call for solidarity with people expiration their countries in search of a better life, and apart from the fact that immigration to Europe has become inevitable, there are some pragmatic reasons to pleasurable non-EU citizens within our borders. Europes demogr aphic situation is one of them.Our existence is growing easily and ageing rapidly. Several studies indicate that if this pattern does not change, within quintet years time we will have difficulty providing the elderly with their well-deserved (and just as keenly-anticipated) pensions. The active population working to pay for those pensions will be unable to keep up with the ever growing group of retired people unless immigration counters this demographic trend, it is argued.Spain, in fact, is an ideal example. This coun canvass population is growing much slowly than ever, with birth rates at an all-time low 1.07 children per fatty woman. UN statistics indicate that by the year 2050, if nothing is done about this evolution, Spains population will have fallen from 40 to 30 million. As immigrants traditionally have a higher birth rate, their presence could counter Spains bewilder pressing demographic problems, with the added benefit of bringing other cultures and lifestyles which create parvenue jobs and bring foreign expertise to areas such as tropical medicine, particular(prenominal) kinds of education and cultural services.Immigration is proving to be the answer to problems faced by the Spanish labour market. Certain sectors, mainly agriculture and the construction industry, are constantly in need of unskilled, cheap labour. Most immigrants to Spain lodge in jobs that few Spanish citizens are willing to take up, and do so on low wages. Farm owners in Andalusia faced a deficit of 35,000 workers this summer. The horticultural sector in Aragon has similar problems, as does the construction industry in the Canaries.We are dealing with a serious short-fall in work forces, and an evenly serious number of people at the borders, trying to make it into Spain and fill those empty jobs. The central Government seems as reluctant as ever to let them in. Only about 30,000 people a year are licitly allowed to immigrate, clearly an insufficient number compared to th e enormous need for spare work forces.The logic of the market dictates that empty jobs will be filled, legally if possible, and definitely illegitimately if necessary, a situation which opens the door to further illegal labour, mafia racketeering and plain exploitation. Instead, we might start contemplating better consolidation programmes, we might make it easier for undocumented foreigners to get their situation regularised, we might try and provide them with any specific needs and protection required or desired.