“We will have to bring millions and millions of immigrants in the coming years,” says Social Security Minister José Luis Escrivá

Spain will need between 8 and 9 million workers in the next three decades to maintain the level of its labor market and avoid the “japanization” of its economy, said Thursday the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá.

In a high-level forum organized by the OECD in Paris, in which he is one of the vice-presidents, Escrivá has insisted that in order to avoid this “Japanization” (passive acceptance of demographic aging without the adoption of measures to open up to immigration nor of birth promotion policies) Spain will need millions of people, something that “will have to be explained” to society.

To preserve the welfare of the country, the minister added, will have to attract “millions and millions of immigrants” in the coming years, and that needs an explanation that must be incorporated into the policies.

Asked if this does not imply an imbalance risk for the labor market itself, he replied that it depends on the horizon with which it is raised, and that what is needed is a medium-term perspective and pedagogy because “demographic trends are there ” The minister has intervened in a round table in which the European Interior Commissioner, Ylva Johannsson, has also participated; the Swedish Minister of Employment, Eva Nordmark; Costa Rican Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Natalia Álvarez, and Deputy Minister of Immigration of Canada, Catrina Tapley.

https://spainsnews.com/spain-needs-9...-japanization/



As a sidenote: unemployment rate in Spain is currently about 15% (33% for people under 25).