The latest official figures show the number of foreign citizens registered with the Spanish Social Security system stood at 1,607,883 in April, up 2.85% from March. The increase equates to 44,540 new National Insurance contributors and represents the largest April rise in the last 10 years.

The figure is up 2.83% (44,262 people) compared with 2014 and is the first April since 2008 in which the number of foreign workers has increased year-on-year. The highest number of overseas workers come from Romania (288,277), Morocco (202,159), China (91,669) and Ecuador (70,666), followed by Italy (69,422), Bolivia (57,266), the United Kingdom (56,648) and Colombia (52,222).

Month-on-month, the largest increases were seen in the Balearic Islands (16.69%), Andalusia (5.92% and Extremadura (2.78%). The number of foreign NI contributors rose in all autonomous regions except the Canary Islands (-0.68%). Year-on-year, the number of workers increased in all autonomous regions except Galicia (-0.85%) and Ceuta (-2.84%).

The figures show that in April, 943,114 of the total foreign citizens registered with the Spanish Social Security system are from non-EU countries, while the remaining 664,769 are from within the EU.

Workers