María Eugenia González has a degree in Accounting from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “I worked for 15 years as an accountant and administrator at a language school and became the deputy director. In other centers I was an English teacher,” she summarizes her working life in Mexico. Her situation changed radically upon crossing the Atlantic. “Since I have been in Spain things have been terrible for me. It has been very difficult for me to regularize my situation and I have not been able to validate my studies. I have almost forgotten what my job was like,” laments this 59-year-old Mexican. Since she lives in Malaga she has only found jobs related to cleaning. “I put out resumes of mine, but they didn't call me. "I see my future job as terrible."
One million interviews collected in the European Labor Force Survey reveal that María Eugenia's case is not an isolated case. EL PAÍS, in a joint investigation with
Lighthouse Reports
,
Financial Times
and
Unbias the News
, has had exclusive access to the microdata from the survey. These anonymized responses reveal the extent to which many university-educated foreigners are excluded from the European labor market and how countries do not take advantage of their talent, a phenomenon known as
brainwaste
.
In Spain,
brainwaste
translates into three key gaps between immigrants and natives: overqualification, unemployment and income.
Overqualification.
Fifth highest gap in Europe
Unemployment.
Third highest gap
Income.
Third highest gap
The difference in overqualification between those born here (33%) and foreigners (54%) is 21 points, considering the responses to the European survey between 2017 and 2022. This occurs in all the countries analyzed, but the data from Spain stands out : It is the third country with the most overqualified foreigners (after Italy and Greece) and the gap with locals is the fifth highest on the continent.
Immigrants with university studies, more overqualified than natives in Europe
% of immigrants and university-educated natives overqualified in each country
This 54% consider workers of any origin, but their origin also influences. If only immigrants from Africa, Asia and Latin America are counted, the gap widens to 24 points: 57% are overqualified, seven points more than those who arrive from countries in the global north.
The research also reveals that 12.7% of immigrants with university studies are unemployed (15.1% among those who arrived less than ten years ago), compared to 7% of Spaniards with the same educational level, a distance only surpassed in Greece and Sweden. The gaps do not end when they find employment, because immigrants also earn less: on a salary scale of ten steps (deciles), the average immigrant with a university education is almost one and a half steps behind the average Spaniard.
Foreign employees, regardless of their studies, are increasingly important for the Spanish labor market: they make up 14% of the total, almost double what they were two decades ago. At the same time, Spain has never employed as many people as it does now, 21 million workers who increase consumption and public funds and reduce the pressure on social benefits.
“The deficiencies of the Spanish labor market are always exacerbated by migrants. Spaniards are already more overqualified than other Europeans, so without a doubt foreigners in Spain will be even more so. This applies to unemployment, to wages or to the sectors where they predominate (they are the majority in the most painful ones),” confirms the head of CC OO Migrations, José Antonio Moreno, when asked about the results of the research. It is an analysis similar to that of Cristina Antoñanzas, deputy secretary general of UGT: “It does not say anything good about our labor market. It is terrible that employers talk about a lack of labor, that they insist on mechanisms to encourage more arrivals and at the same time there are already so many immigrants here who cannot develop their profession." Despite complaints from business and the Executive, Spain registers one of the lowest rates of unfilled vacancies in Europe, according to Eurostat.
The CC OO and UGT unions are the two main actors in social dialogue in Spain along with the CEOE and Cepyme employers' associations. Together with the Government, they make decisions on labor migration matters. This newspaper has requested the participation of both business organizations to analyze the data collected together with
Lighthouse Reports
, but they have rejected the invitation.
Sources from the Ministry of Migration recognize that overqualification problems affect immigrants to a greater extent, but they emphasize that it is a “generalized phenomenon in the European Union.” To solve this, Elma Saiz's department is committed to "involving companies and adopting formulas to search for and retain talent."
The impact of approvals
A major obstacle for immigrants seeking qualified jobs in Spain is the recognition of their qualifications, according to all experts. Without the homologation of the title, a doctor would not be able to work as such and a teacher will only be able to act as a childminder.
The analysis by EL PAÍS and
Lighthouse
reveals that two thirds (67%) of immigrants who do not manage to have their diploma homologated do jobs for which they are overqualified. Among those who do achieve certification, 49% end up in a job below their training. This means that even with a title as valid as that of a Spanish worker, foreigners face more difficulties.
These numbers do not explain whether homologation improves the conditions of immigrants by itself or whether those who seek recognition of their degree have more incentives to work on their own. To understand the impact of the homologation plan that Spain approved in 2014, we have analyzed how the job opportunities of immigrants with university studies have changed after that date. The data from the European survey do not show great improvements: in fact, people who have arrived from outside Europe are less likely than Spaniards to work in regulated professions, those that require a specific diploma or license (teachers, doctors, etc). This situation has not changed after the reform ten years ago.
Despite its importance, the approval process continues to have flaws. The Homologación Justa Ya association brings together 3,000 foreign professionals who want to develop their trade in Spain: “Homologation is too difficult and [the process] is totally degrading. In Spain, on average, a person's life is frozen for three years due to documentation,” denounces one of its representatives, Rami Ahmadi.
The Italian-Venezuelan Bárbara Puglisi helps many immigrants in this process, through the NGO Ecos de Paz. This expert compares it to the United States, where certifications are enabled through three or four month courses that allow you to "practice the basics of your profession, while you wait to approve the title." “Why does an engineer in Spain have to wait up to five years?” Puglisi asks.
Mónica María Monguí, migration specialist and researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid, “migration in Spain is relatively recent compared to other European countries with different migratory patterns, so the development of mechanisms for the integration of highly qualified is different and may be more premature.”
More than a year ago, the Ministry of Universities launched a new system to expedite these approvals due to the growth in requests: in 2015, 13,522 applications were registered; Until September 2023, 37,748 had been received, almost triple. The new mechanism has managed to go from 804 positive resolutions between January and November 2022 to 2,589 between January and September of last year.
The corporatism of many professional associations is also an important aspect when talking about the difficulties in standardizing degrees, according to Moreno from CC OO. “Because of their corporatism, they don't want many employees to rush in, they want to have control.” Rosa Aparicio, Colombian and migration expert at the Ortega-Marañón University Institute, agrees with him: “I suffered this first-hand, it was very difficult for me.”
A labor market that encourages the problem
There are other structural flaws in the Spanish labor market that entrench this problem. Among them is the general unemployment rate, the highest in Europe (11.5%, compared to 6% in the European Union as a whole), which means that in Spain there is more competition for each job. “This hinders the ability of highly qualified migrants to find jobs that match their human capital,” says Monguí, the sociologist at the Complutense of Madrid.
“Spain does not have a developed and diversified economy that takes advantage of the skills of qualified migrant workers. Predominant sectors such as tourism and agriculture limit opportunities for more qualified jobs,” adds Monguí. That is, there are fewer jobs available than in other countries and there are few that require higher education.
The rate of university students in Spain is among the highest on the continent, and this also contributes to narrowing the door for foreign workers like the Algerian Anas Boukli, who studied pharmacy in his country. “I work as a delivery driver, but I have experience in my country as a hospital pharmacist. I am disappointed and frustrated,” says this 26-year-old resident of Granada.
He lives in the same city and is the same age as the Moroccan Anas Khouader: “I came to Spain for the job opportunities, but it is costing me a lot. I didn't expect this to happen to me. I do not have a job now". He completed his studies in Labor Relations in Spain, at the University of Granada, but still does not have a work permit: “I am doing a master's degree related to my studies because with the new regulations (rooting by training, which has skyrocketed the number of students from outside the EU) then I will be able to work. I have managed to advance in some interviews, but when they see my administrative problems they back out.” Sources from the Ministry of Migration claim precisely the measure of roots by training: this new route for foreign students (which has benefited 300,000 since August 2022) allows them to work and study in Spain.
They have just arrived in Spain, but the data analyzed by EL PAÍS and
Lighthouse
indicate that the degree of overqualification is very similar between recent arrivals and those who have been in the country for a decade.
In Spain, furthermore, small companies are more protagonists of the productive fabric than in the rest of Europe: "We are a country of SMEs and micro-SMEs, which distances us from the dynamics of large companies, from more professional selection processes," indicates the UGT expert. And far from professionalization, prejudices and intrinsic racism that foreigners continue to suffer are widespread.
“It is discrimination, a bias that exists even if companies say no,” says Aparicio. As he documented in a 2023 study, many companies “do not imagine” foreigners in positions that require university training: in his work he showed that the resumes of the children of foreigners were less chosen in the selection processes. Monguí also insists on this aspect: “This situation reinforces the ethnostratification of the labor market, in which the location of migrants comes to depend more on their origin than on their professional skills.”
Lying to be chosen
Marianna Martínez erased some of her merits from her resume. “When they see that you have a high level, they back down. I have removed things to convey a low profile, so that people do not think that I had too much training,” laments this Venezuelan, consultant and doctor in Sociology from the University of Zaragoza. For years she tried to work in the private sector, but despite the brilliant resume she brought from her country (“I graduated
summa cum laude
from the Central University of Venezuela”) and her proven experience, she never succeeded. “I was rejected everywhere, in consulting firms and companies specializing in market research that were dedicated to my sector, applied sociology. It was impossible". She assures that in some interviews she perceived surprise at the fact of having higher education while she is Venezuelan. “But how did you get to university, they told me.” The first opportunity to work on his own in Spain crystallized at the University of Zaragoza. Before she worked in
call centers
.
Cases like Marianna's lead Ahmed Khalifa, president of the Moroccan Association for the Integration of Immigrants, to the following reflection: “If you're not a crack, you won't even come close. Immigrants have to prove much more than others, we cannot be mediocre. You always have to be the best, and the worst thing is that it is an accepted situation. There is a glass ceiling that you cannot overcome, which prevents real equality in access to all job possibilities.”
Added to the gap between migrants and natives is the gender gap, according to data analyzed by EL PAÍS and
Lighthouse
: foreign university men are affected by overqualification 17 points more than natives, while among women this difference grows to 24. This happens in part because fewer Spanish university women tend to be more overqualified for their jobs.
Foreigners with higher education also suffer more unemployment. In Spain this rate rises to 12.7%, the second highest figure recorded, only behind the Greek 18.8%. Among national workers this percentage falls to 7%, which shows a significant gap of six points. The situation is better for those who have been in Spain the longest: among those who have been in Spain for more than a decade it is 10.5%, compared to 15.1% of those who have been in Spain for less than ten years.
Immigrants with university studies suffer more unemployment than natives in Europe
% of immigrants and university-educated natives unemployed in each country
The gap also crystallizes in income: if we order the income of all university students in Spain, an average immigrant would be in decile 5.5, very close to the Spanish median; while a Spaniard with the same educational level would be at 6.8, among the richest third in the country. That is to say, on a ladder with ten steps, immigrant university students would be almost one and a half steps behind the average native.
A human and economic waste
The greater demands in the market or the barriers to access to the chosen profession have direct effects on the country's economy. According to estimates by
Lighthouse
and this newspaper, this waste of foreign talent in Spain represents the loss of close to one point of GDP (0.89%). It is an estimated figure, which considers the income generated by natives of different ages or types of training and which assumes that migrants with these characteristics will earn the same.
More palpable is the negative effect it has on foreign workers. “The migratory grief is very hard. There are people who have left their family, their status, their home, who live in a shared room, and in exchange they are not even allowed to practice their profession. "They are forced to abandon their professional careers, to work on whatever arises to get ahead," laments Puglisi, who is used to dealing with workers in her NGO who face depressive processes. She believes that overqualification is more common among South American immigrants, because it is more common for them to arrive with a degree under their arm. “When they see that they will not be able to work, many turn to self-employment. No one takes their knowledge away from them, so at least they try with some business.”
The environment of foreigners who do not do their own thing, their trusted community, is not usually employed in the most advanced sectors. “When you look for a job, and this also applies to Spaniards, you depend a lot on the networks you have, on who you know. It is more difficult for foreigners to meet workers in qualified sectors,” adds Aparicio. It is rare, in fact, to see foreigners in some types of companies, on television or in public administration.
The data analyzed for this research shows that, among overqualified immigrants, at least 30% work as waiters, truck drivers or helpers in houses and residences.
“Employers still have a hard time hiring us for the best jobs,” says Fanny Lili Villanueva (29 years old). This Honduran is a teacher, but she works as a housekeeper in Madrid. “It is a way out for many, the easiest thing to achieve.” She says that a recurring conversation with compatriot friends and family is her “sadness” for not being able to develop her profession: “I would like to work on my own, I hope she does. It is something that people of different nationalities talk about a lot. It's frustrating".
Monguí bases these impressions and numbers when he talks about the fact that there is “a limited transferability of the human capital that migrants bring with them from their country of origin to Spain.” That is, waste of talent.
Methodology and sources
Lighthouse Reports has had exclusive access to the microdata from the European Labor Force Survey, published by Eurostat. These data are usually only available to researchers and academics. The complete methodology of the project is available at this link.
All visualizations and data mentioned in this report refer to the data added in the period 2017-2022, except for the United Kingdom, which only contributed data to this survey until 2019. The graphs of each indicator only show those countries where the differences in the indicators between immigrants and natives are statistically significant. In addition, Luxembourg, Cyprus and Malta have been excluded from these graphs, due to their size, as well as four groupings of countries that we have used in the project: the Visegrad Group, the Baltic countries, the Balkan countries, and the US -07 (Bulgaria and Romania).
Data for Germany is not available in the original survey.
Credits
The following have collaborated on this report: María Martín (EL PAÍS) and Beatriz Ramalho da Silva (Lighthouse Reports) in the text; Luís Sevillano Pires in the visualizations.
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