El número de afiliados extranjeros crece en 15.804 ocupados en febrero, de los que 4.204 son autónomos

The Social Security registered 2,971,811 foreign affiliates in February, once the seasonality and the calendar effect were discounted, after adding 15,804 occupied. In the last twelve months, the number of people employed in other countries has increased by 7.6%. This is a new peak in off-season employment, in line with the trend that has been maintained throughout 2024.
Since the implementation of the labour reform in 2022, the system has seen an increase of 604,592 workers from other countries, or 26.6% more. This means that 44.1% of the employment created in the last three years corresponds to foreign workers.
In the context of general membership, foreign workers account for 13.8% of the total employed, six tenths more than a year ago.

Average affiliation
In average terms and without seasonalization, that is, in the original series, Social Security counted 2,874,398 affiliates from other countries, which represents 202,851 more in the last year and 31,369 more than in January.
The highest number of foreign people who contribute to Social Security is recorded in both the original and the seasonally adjusted series of a month of February.

 

Self-employed workers
In terms of distribution by regime, it is worth noting the increase in self-employed workers from other countries. In the last month alone, there has been an increase of 4,204 foreign workers in the Special Regime for Self-Employed Persons (RETA)
. In February, foreign workers accounted for 90% of the rate of increase in self-employed persons in the last year (1.1% of 1.2% of the total). In particular, there are 471,559 workers registered under this special regime, which represents an increase of 8.2% in year-on-year terms, and represents 16.4% of the total number of self-employed in Spain.

The increase in the number of foreign self-employed in the last year has been especially pronounced in the Information and Communications sector, which has grown by 34.5%. Also noteworthy are Professional Scientific and Technical Activities, which increases the number of self-employed by 17.3%.

General regime
In line with what happens with native workers, 83.4% of foreign affiliates fell under the General Social Security Regime, reaching 2,398,066 workers. 
In the last 12 months, the affiliation of foreign people in this regime has grown by around 7.5% and in seven sectors it does so especially: Transportation and Storage (24.9%), Water Supply (11.9%), Administrative Activities (9.7%), Health Activities (9.6%), Construction (9.4%), Manufacturing Industry (9.3%) and Hospitality (9.10%). 
The year-on-year growth in the membership of foreigners is also very remarkable in activities of high added value where there is a notable growth in Financial Activities (9%), Scientific and Technical Professional Activities (7.6%) and Information and Communications, which increases by 7%. 
The distribution by sector in both the General System and Self-Employed Workers shows a growing diversification.
More than 73,000 Ukrainian affiliates
31.3% are workers from European Union countries. Of all nationalities, Morocco tops the list of countries from which the largest number of contributors comes, followed by Romania, Colombia, Italy, Venezuela and China.
Of the total number of affiliated persons from other countries: 1.6 million are men and 1.2 million are women - a figure that reaches 32.6% since before the pandemic (December 2019). The number of female members exceeds 43 per cent of the total number of foreign workers. 
Among other nationalities, there are 73,231 members from Ukraine, 25,653 more than in February 2022, when the war had not yet begun, representing a growth of 54%.
The majority of workers from Ukraine, about 82.1%, are in the General System (they are salaried) and 17.9% are self-employed.