The Government of the Principality will launch the Return Office in April to promote the return of Asturians abroad, a strategy in whose drafting the social and economic agents, as well as municipal representatives and the educational sector, will collaborate.
The objective of this initiative is to consolidate a management system through a physical and virtual space that, as a one-stop shop, provides social, labor, economic and administrative advice to those who have already returned to the Principality or wish to do so.
It will also offer in-person and telematic follow-up to support the social and labor integration of those who have returned, especially those who are in a particularly vulnerable situation.
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“The office is one of the measures included in the RetornAs Plan, with which we seek the three goals: facilitate, favor and encourage the return of emigrants to Asturias,” the vice president of the Asturian Government and advisor to the Presidency explains to this newspaper. , Demographic Challenge, Equality and Tourism, Gimena Llamedo.
The plan will bring together all the policies to support and promote return, from those that are already being applied (such as financial aid) to those that will be promoted by the autonomous Administration (such as the Return and Virtual offices), in addition to those that are articulated from other entities or that they propose to incorporate from different groups.
For this purpose, a working group has been established in which the Asturian Rural Development Network (Reader), the UGT and CC OO unions, the Asturias XXI Compromiso, the Asturian Federation of Councils, the El Prial and Returned Emigrants of Asturias associations are represented. , the Edes Foundation, the Asturian Federation of Entrepreneurs, the Chambers of Commerce, the councils of Asturian Communities and Spanish Citizenship Abroad, as well as the return points from abroad in Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata.
"We do it, as we promised, in a dialogue, which is why we have invited companies, unions, the educational field and municipalism to participate in this strategy and enrich it with their contributions and points of view."
For the vice president, the return to Asturias cannot be addressed unilaterally: “We need everyone to develop a collaborative and transversal strategy.”
The objective of the working group is to collect all possible proposals and involve the social, business and academic fabric in their preparation.
“Asturias was a land of emigration, now we are going to turn it into a land of return.
This is the ideal territory to live, to work and to invest,” Llamedo highlighted.
Change of trend
In Asturias, a change in trend is observed in terms of migratory movements.
Traditionally, it was a land of emigrants, but currently there is a reversal in this trend and in recent years, the migratory balance is positive.
In 2023, according to INE data, 3,390 people arrived in Asturias from abroad, compared to the 550 who left.
And many of them were Asturians or descendants of Asturians who decided to return to Asturias.
For this reason, the Return Office is launched, which will work in coordination with other areas of the Government, such as employment or social rights.
It will be made up of three profiles: career counselor, social worker and a management body.
This is an element to convey and provide a more effective and comprehensive response to the demand for information that reaches the General Directorate daily, and that has been increased in recent times by the political situation that countries like Argentina are going through, where concentrates a greater number of Asturians abroad.
Precisely for this reason, and as a pilot project, this year we will work with two Asturian centers in Argentina, Mar de Plata and Buenos Aires, which, within the social care they provide, will specifically offer information on opportunities to return to Asturias. .
Both will work in coordination with Asturias, in the detection of return opportunities, as well as in the information and advice so that the return occurs.
Asturias is the first single-provincial community and the fifth in Spain with the most residents abroad: 138,207 people, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) as of December 1, 2023 The countries with the highest number of Asturian registered in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA) are: Argentina (31,378), Mexico (20,869), Cuba (15,473) and the United States (7,723).
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