Tommy Tainant
Diamond Member

How Spain’s radically different approach to migration helped its economy soar
As immigration has increased, GDP has surged and unemployment has fallen to lowest level since 2008
Months on, his stance has seemingly been backed by economic data: Spain’s economy expanded by 3.2% last year. This far outpaced Germany’s 0.2% contraction, France’s 1.1% growth and Italy’s 0.5%. The figure was also ahead of Britain, whose total GDP grew by 0.9% last year and the Netherlands’ 0.8% growth.
Crucial to this growth was the movement of people, said Javier Díaz-Giménez, a professor of economics at the IESE Business School. “It’s been done with a lot of tourists and a lot of immigrants.”
Its a departure from orthodox right wing dogma but it illustrates the wrong headed approach ub the UK especially.
Thousands of immigrants working and building things, paying taxes is a whole lot better than having locked up in hotels kicking their heels at our expense.
Better for them and better for our society.
While some politicians had called for Syrians in Germany to return to their homeland, a study by the German Economic Institute highlighted that about 80,000 Syrians were working in sectors experiencing deep labour shortages, from the auto industry to dentistry and childcare.
More than 5,000 Syrian doctors were also fully employed in the country, meaning returns could result in “critical shortages” in medical services, it noted.
Maybe xenophobia is not the first instinct we should consult when forming policy. Those commies at JP Morgan tend to agree.
“One remarkable facet of Spain’s recent performance has been the role of immigration,” economists at JPMorgan noted in a recent research report. “2022 saw the highest net migration in 10 years, at close to three-quarters of a million individuals.”
The Bank of Spain tends to agree
“Overall, Bank of Spain analysis suggests immigration contributed over 20% to the near 3% GDP per capita income growth during 2022-2024,” noted JPMorgan.
So Spain has better public services, better pensions and a fully functioning ecomomy thanks to immigrants. Sounds good to me.