Canarian Weekly
17-05-2013, 12:20
SPAIN’S economic crisis has not been blamed for the enormous exodus of natives to the UK in the past decade.
THE number Spaniards emigrating to Britain has actually trebled, according to recent studies.
Around 11,000 moved to Britain in 2002, compared with 30,000 in 2011, according to Amparo González, head of the High Council for Scientific Investigations (CSIC).
González, a sociology expert, says the number of Spanish people who received their first National Insurance numbers in the UK to enable them to work went up by 6,000 between 2010 and 2011.
This, she maintained, shows an “evident” impact caused by the Spanish recession. But she stressed that moving abroad was “a costly and risky exercise”.
It required resources such as a human support network, sound knowledge of the English language, enough money to get settled until they find stable work and get their first pay packet, and no financial or family ties in Spain.
Research shows that the typical profile of a Spanish migrant to the UK is aged 35-44 with high qualifications and is financially comfortable,
He or she has plenty of information, and usually has a job offer in the shape of a promotion already.
And there are as many men as women moving to Britain to work.
“Put another way, people who have been unemployed for two years or more, for example, are less likely to leave Spain because they generally do not have the personal or family resources to do so,” said González.
“The current level of Spanish migrants is a new situation, but is largely because those who do so are much more highly-qualified than those who moved abroad in the 1960s or 1970s.
“And they tend to aim for countries where the move goes much more smoothly, thanks to the rights every EU citizen has in any of the other member states.
“The likelihood of their returning to Spain in the future is difficult to assess, but the Spanish Government’s refusal to recognise that emigration is rising rapidly is worrying.”
And she believes that the volume of Spaniards who have left the country for the long term, or for good, is probably considerably higher.
According to the Census of Spaniards Resident Abroad (CERA), 176,770 people have moved to another country in the last five years, but this is almost certainly just a fraction of the true figure.
But González said: “Only a minority of those who leave Spain register as residents with the Spanish Consulate in their new countries and, of the few who do, wait for several years until they are already established there.
“To this end the figures we have help us to detect emigration trends, at best, but they will never allow us to assess the true magnitude of the exodus of Spaniards.”
More... (http://www.canarianweekly.com/spaniards-flood-uk/)
THE number Spaniards emigrating to Britain has actually trebled, according to recent studies.
Around 11,000 moved to Britain in 2002, compared with 30,000 in 2011, according to Amparo González, head of the High Council for Scientific Investigations (CSIC).
González, a sociology expert, says the number of Spanish people who received their first National Insurance numbers in the UK to enable them to work went up by 6,000 between 2010 and 2011.
This, she maintained, shows an “evident” impact caused by the Spanish recession. But she stressed that moving abroad was “a costly and risky exercise”.
It required resources such as a human support network, sound knowledge of the English language, enough money to get settled until they find stable work and get their first pay packet, and no financial or family ties in Spain.
Research shows that the typical profile of a Spanish migrant to the UK is aged 35-44 with high qualifications and is financially comfortable,
He or she has plenty of information, and usually has a job offer in the shape of a promotion already.
And there are as many men as women moving to Britain to work.
“Put another way, people who have been unemployed for two years or more, for example, are less likely to leave Spain because they generally do not have the personal or family resources to do so,” said González.
“The current level of Spanish migrants is a new situation, but is largely because those who do so are much more highly-qualified than those who moved abroad in the 1960s or 1970s.
“And they tend to aim for countries where the move goes much more smoothly, thanks to the rights every EU citizen has in any of the other member states.
“The likelihood of their returning to Spain in the future is difficult to assess, but the Spanish Government’s refusal to recognise that emigration is rising rapidly is worrying.”
And she believes that the volume of Spaniards who have left the country for the long term, or for good, is probably considerably higher.
According to the Census of Spaniards Resident Abroad (CERA), 176,770 people have moved to another country in the last five years, but this is almost certainly just a fraction of the true figure.
But González said: “Only a minority of those who leave Spain register as residents with the Spanish Consulate in their new countries and, of the few who do, wait for several years until they are already established there.
“To this end the figures we have help us to detect emigration trends, at best, but they will never allow us to assess the true magnitude of the exodus of Spaniards.”
More... (http://www.canarianweekly.com/spaniards-flood-uk/)