Working in Spain

(Following on from last week...)

Many people dream of coming to live in Spain, and who can blame them? It’s a great place. However, one has to cost ones’ dreams, and while life is cheaper here than in Northern Europe, it still bites.

So then, we need income. This preferably comes from ‘home’, either as a pension or some other form of funding – a healthy portfolio for example.

The second way is to find a job in Spain. A brief check on Google finds this and this.

Know that it is not easy to find a job as unemployment here is high (and post-Covid, higher). Also, Spaniards don’t often offer jobs to foreigners and, well, they do things differently here. For a start, your certificates and diplomas and letters of introduction may not carry much weight. Contacts and family rule in Spain, and we foreigners likely won’t have that essential network. 

In Mojácar, where half of the inhabitants are foreigners, there is not a single one of us working for the town hall, or as a policeman, or patrolling the beaches or manning the (non-existent) Foreigners' Department. No, not even the foreign-kids who went through the local school system and are bilingual. They must be content with jobs in the private sector. 

There may be some jobs available in Madrid and Barcelona with foreign banks or accountants and so on, but there won’t be many available in any normal Spanish-controlled industry.

Maybe start your own business, or open a (oh no, not another) bar or restaurant, or teach your native language as an au pair or at some academia (presumably you’ll have the correct paperwork).

Remember that Spaniards don’t particularly drink in Brit bars or eat in foreign restaurants (Italian places excluded), so – apart from the eager expats living locally – the catchment area of potential customers is smaller than the population would suggest, and the rents (and other costs) are often higher than one would like.

Which is why many of us cater for the tourists; but the Spanish are looking for them as well, and they can always undercut and overreach our efforts.  

But there are many foreigners here who do work successfully. It certainly can be done.

An interesting new wrinkle on foreigners keeping busy here is the new phenomenon of tele-working which, says Yahoo Finance, ‘could bring many foreigners to live in Spain’.

Other businesses we foreigners get into – like builders, house-painters, carpenters and pool-cleaners and plumbers – but once again, no Spaniard is going to hire a British house-painter. 

One thing they know, a foreigner can (and will) do ‘a runner’ when things go bad, leaving behind debt and ill-will. A family-connected Spaniard will tend to stay where he is, and the law will have to grind its way through the agonisingly-long process.

Some of the foreign handymen will be un-licenced, or working for cash, or they may even take the next step, and, knowing that the judicial system here is little short of hopeless, they will simply live from diddling their fellow-foreigners.

How many of us, newly arrived in Spain, were met with the question (probably in a bar) ‘are you going to live here? It’s all a bit strange, you know. I speak the language, let me help you get started…’. In short, how many of us have been taken for a ride by our fellow nationals?

Spain is a great place, but it can find your weaknesses – whether it is drink, drugs, destroying relationships, theft or swindling people. There’s no nearby Auntie Maud or Uncle Eustace to keep you on the straight and narrow. We Brits don't police ourselves.

There are different rules, customs and systems here, and the newly-arrived well-meaning immigrant won’t know them. Sometimes, it will be a steep learning curve.

And finally, consider this, things will get worse for the Brits if/when we will need a work-permit as non-EU citizens.