Annabel Grossman
A RECORD number of Spanish people moved to Germany last year, faced with soaring unemployment and economic crisis at home.
According to figures from the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of Spanish immigrants arriving in Germany in 2012 increased by 45 percent to 29,910.
That was the greatest number of Spanish entrants to Germany since Destatis first compiled the statistical series in 1996.
More than six million Spaniards were out of work in the first quarter of 2013, with the jobless rate hitting a record 27.2 percent.
Overall Immigration to Germany reached a 17-year high in 2012, with waves of Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians and Hungarians also heading to the EU economic powerhouse.
The most immigrants came from Poland, with 68,100 new arrivals, while 45,700 came from Romania, and 51,500 arrived from Hungary and Bulgaria.
But the greatest increases came from peripheral eurozone countries such as Italy, Portugal and Greece. Some 4,000 more immigrants arrived from Portugal in 2012, while 10,000 more came from Greece and 14,000 from Italy.
“Until recently, Germany was an emigration country, but now people are flocking to Germany in search of work, as their home countries are mired in recession,” said Wolfgang Nagl, a labour market expert at the Ifo institute.
This is the only way they are going to bring the Spanish unemployment rate down.
And, just around the corner ………
“http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100024476/spain-is-officially-insolvent-get-your-money-out-while-you-still-can/”
Not just Germany, many Spanish people on plane to Bournemouth and Bristol working in UK.
Reap: Yeah, that’s one way of doing it. So would a tactical nuclear bomb.
The Spanish tax payers (via some very poor quality teaching) educate young people only for them to take their “skills” to another country.
Meanwhile the real thickies stay in Spain unemployed or unemployable…
Thank you Spain for being so generous with your people’s money! No wonder three quarters of them try to dodge paying tax!
Stop it !
How can you in all conscience live here and keep on knocking it. The fact is that the Spanish are a very well laid back people, who have been royally screwed by a combination of Bad Politicians, Bad Bankers and a corrupt system mostly a hand over from the days of the Dictator Franco. The youngr ones are beginning to wake and not swallow the lies damn lies and more damn lies which the government spews out.
It is true that many many people are having to leave to find work, it is also true that many many people in Spain are working on the black , It is also true that prices here are North European but the salaries and living conditions are definitely not. It is also ture that all politicians of every hue and tenet dont have a clue about what to do. Why do you think that there are sailing so close to the EU mast, because they think that eventually they will be able to blame everything onto them.
Even to employ someone here is ridiculously expensive, but they are royally mucked up by the rules and regs of the Brussels Mafia.
It is a time for us to support our friends and brethren. You cannot just sit in the sun and gripe, be aware if they go down any further YOU will end up going with them, if you have property or savings here, you are going to get
stuffed like the Christmas turkey, but spare a thought for the poor Spanish a,d 40,000 home repossessions last year
They deserve our sympathy as much as amnything else, because they are basically in the same boat as you, they didnt cause this mess. Therefore they dpo not deserve your derision.
David Roberts – Thank you for an honest balanced view of why Spain is in this mess . I agree 100% we came here to live by choice and if we didnt like it we would leave . I am sick of hearing moans and gripes about Spain . I can advise anyone who wishes to leave to do so or get their act together and start fighting with the Spanish to make things better .
Stefano, that was funny. Millions of people leave the sick economies. I stay in hotels a few times a month in the UK and the majority of people in the Hotels are not British. If we kicked them all out I think the Country would grind to a halt, that is not stating that we should let everyone in and give them benefits like we do now. I think we will leave Europe soon. All the people from the Countryside in Spain would normally go to Barcelona or the like to find work but more are having to go even further afield. There is nothing more I would like for Spain than for it to be doing well but all the time they are not sorting out their corrupt people then they have no chance. How bad does it have to get before they behave differently? I think the politicians are so thick that they will carry on as they have always done. Spain damages their reputation at every opportunity possible. It starts to effect other things as well, the Spanish Brands, Seat etc. If your Country has a bad image so will everything connected to it. And by the way, I am not going to fight and help the Country, I have too many other things to do. I gave up caring a long time ago after having dealt with the corruption.
To Dave Roberts (and lou louie)
Take off the rose coloured specs and examine the facts. Comments appearing here have been invited by the above article and have nothing to do with ex-pat life in Spain but everything to do with the many problems facing Spain today – apart from their love affair with endless fiestas and the sofa.
To blame a corrupt system handed over by Franco IS very insulting to the Spanish people and quite ridiculous – the guy has been dead nearly forty years and whatever is inherited from his regime are mostly the good things.
Try reading books by Pio Moa “Myths of the Civil War” and “Franco for Anti-Francoists” instead of relying on leftie propaganda trotted out by the likes of Paul Preston. To really understand Spain it is important to study its history BEFORE the Civil War broke out and even long standing lefties like Ken Loach (Land and Freedom) and George Orwell (Homage to Catalonia) are far more honest and revealing about Spain than the present day bunch of propagandists …
Spain voted to join the EU in 1986 and every year since has received millions of euros in aid and subsidies – to suggest that some fictitious “Brussels Mafia” is responsible for the present day chaos is ridiculous and not worth further discussion.
A fair amount of blame lies with the Spanish voting twice to have the idiot Don José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero ruin their country. He destroyed most things including the education, financial and religious structures, leaving an almost impossible task of clearing up the mess to the far more competent (but institutionally corrupt) PP.
Should the Olive Press care to feature an article on how good the weather and the food is in Spain I am confident that the replies will be more positive and to your liking.
Maria
David Roberts and Lou Louie…THANK YOU! I couldn’t agree more.
Maria should be editor, she knows the facts.
Maria, well said, I enjoyed reading that.
Germany is the economic model of the European Union and one of the fewest countries with a high GNP. You have to applaud the Germans for their high engineering skills. What Germany should try to do is figure out a model to spread their acuity towards quality engineering around the world. They should reach out more, like Microsoft.