When you visit the ex-pat forums, you'll notice there are questions that come up time after time. One of the favourites is about getting a job in Spain.
Often the question is something like this:
"Hi Everyone
My partner (Darren) and I are planning a move to Spain and we're wondering how easy it is getting jobs here. He's a trained quantity surveyor with 18 years experience and I'm a fully-qualified aromatherapist. Can anyone give us any advice?
Lots of love Donna x."
Although I don't work in Spain (I work in the UK and visit), it's been my observation that among the ex-pat community there are two types of people: those who have money and those who have jobs. There is a tiny number of ex-pats who have both and a much larger number who have neither.
The first and overwhelmingly most important question is: do you speak fluent spanish? Without this, you are at a huge disadvantage. Apart from the basic question of how can you possibly fill in an application form that you don't understand, even if someone helps you. They won't be there if by some flook you get an interview - which will be conducted in spanish. Most employers realise they'd be wasting their time even calling you in unless there's a positive confirmaqtion that you could converse with them at a sensible, adult, level. A GCSE won't cut it.
Second, unless you're planning to live in one of the major cities: Madrid, Barcelona and maybe one or two others, the kind of desk-bound, service economy, jobs that you probably had in the UK is very hard to find, even if you do have perfect spanish. Most workers in Spain make their money either in the holiday industry (read: bar work, shop work, hotel work, selling stuff to tourists), growing stuff or making stuff. Desk jobs are much sought-after and will generally go to someone who knows someone - frequently a relative.
Another thing to realise is that unemployment in Spain is high. The figures I've seen[1] show an unemployment rate of 11%, compared with the UK's 4.6% - although, to be fair I expect a lot more spaniards work "unofficially", just don;t pay into the social security and tax systems.
As far as wages go, give up any thought of £30k + a car. Think in terms of €5 per hour and all the brocolli you can eat. Typically, pay in Spain is about half what it is in the UK and in rural areas, even lower; which is reflected in the generally manual / unskilled work available.
So, what do all the brits do for a living? Most of them seem to work for themselves. A lot become estate agents - selling property to other brits. Another popular job is in the building trade - doing up the houses that the brits buy. A lot of the remainder use their entreprenurial skills to set up their own small businesses, either within the complicated, expensive and all-enveloping spanish bureaucracy, or by working unofficially, outside the law. The remainder will either get a series of part-time jobs until they chuck it in after a couple of years and go back to the UK, or luck-out and get a job working for one of the brits who's made a success out of their own business.
Newsflash
There are new rules that tighten up on estate agents - that has or will kill off a lot of the casual/unofficial agencies. The value of the Euro has risien dramatically in recent months (Mar. 2008) which makes house prices in Spain less attractive. Between them, these two changes could seriously affect the number of brits who will buy in Spain, thus reducing further the scope for non-spanish speakers to make money there. |
One area that
does look promising is telecommuting. If you have a job that does not need your physical presence, such as a writer or possibly something in I.T. you can use a fast internet connection to allow you to deliver your service to anywhere - including an employer (or your current employer) in the UK. You will still, probably, have to pop back on a frequent basis, but you could still manage to spend large parts of a lot of weeks in Spain. You never know, you might even get UK rates of pay!
Where does that leave Darren and Donna, our quantity surveyor and aromatherapist? Well it depends where they live. On the coast there may be some work for an aromatherapist amonng the retired ex-pat communities. But it's unlikely to make enough to keep up the payments on a mortgage. A quantity surveyor might just get some casual work using their skills for a construction company, putting up apartments on the costa's. Neither occupation will give the couple anough money to enjoy the carefree lifestyle they dreamed about, from their desks or salon in rainy old England - before they came over.
If they had moved inland - to get away from the hustle and bustle and see the "real" Spain, they have even less chance. Even jobs that you'd think had good prospects - everywhere needs teachers, nurses, electricians and the like, will find it tough. Apart from the original problem of not speaking the language, in rural Spain there simply aren't enough people to support a service economy. If you think I'm kidding, just look at the number of vacancies for "urban" type jobs in rural parts of the UK, such as Dartmoor, Cumbria, the scottish highlands or west Wales. There aren't many aromatherapists in those places.
1Source:
The Economist Essentials Pocket World in Figures 2007
