Recession fueling Balearic exodus

Over the past five years, the number of Balearic residents opting to escape the recession and move abroad has risen by 55 percent.
According to the institute's findings, on January 1, 2013, there were 20'056 Balearic residents living overseas compared to 14'176 in 2009.
On average, the number of Balearic residents moving abroad has risen by 2'000 per year over the past five years.
Popular destination
And, at the same time, after having been an extremely popular destination for mainland Spaniards looking for work for many years, over the past decade that number of mainlanders coming to the islands has gradually declined.

Main reasons being the lack of employment opportunities and the high cost of living compared to the mainland. Last year, the number of babies born to mothers from other regions of Spain fell by 441, a phenomenon which has not happened for years. Where the most Balearic residents can be found on the mainland is in Catalonia and Andalusia, but those communities are not growing as an ever increasing number of Balearic residents have decided to head overseas in search of work and a better life.

The United Kingdom and Germany are two of the most popular destinations for those looking for work but so too is the Middle East and the United States.
In fact, there are growing concerns in Spain as a whole that the country is on the verge of a brain drain. And, it is not just the Spanish who are deciding to flee the country to avoid further pain from the recession.

Spain's population fell in 2012, the first time since annual records began in 1998 as immigrants also left in droves because of the steep recession that has tipped one in four people in the country out of work.

Building boom
There were 47.1 million residents in Spain as of the first of January, 205'788 fewer than during the same time last year, according to provisional figures from the national statistics institute.

Traditionally a nation that sent immigrants abroad, Spain saw the number of foreigners living within its borders take off from around half a million in 1996 to around five million in 2006 as a labour-intensive building boom lured low-skilled workers from abroad.

But the flow of immigration to the country has slowed since Spain entered into its worst recession in decades at the end of 2008 as the global credit crisis hastened a correction already underway in its key property sector.

And this week, Brussels on Friday offered more rights for European Union migrant workers despite mounting concerns in some European capitals over fraud or abuse of welfare systems by immigrants.