Employee at an Italian restaurant in Palma, Mallorca

The number of Italian restaurants continues to grow. | Miquel À. Cañellas

Andrew EdePalma21/08/2022 07:26
TW
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Social security figures for July show that Italy is the main provider of foreign workers in the Balearics. This was the case before the pandemic, but there has been an increase from 16,750 in July 2019 to 18,132. These workers constitute 31.5% of all EU workers in the Balearics and 14% of all foreign workers. Morocco is second with 11,787, followed by Germany (11,290) and, some way behind, the UK (6,807) and Colombia (6,697).

Hospitality is the main sector, the president of the CAEB restaurants association, Alfonso Robledo, saying that the increasing number of Italian workers is proportionally related to the number of Italian restaurants. "They are continuing to open new places, and most of the Italian businesspeople who invest and open businesses here prefer to bring in their own teams."

Since 2019, the trend in terms of foreign workers from the EU has been downward. There are fewer Germans, Bulgarians and Romanians. And it is the same with the British. The upward trend has predominantly been among Italians, Moroccans and Colombians.

While the trends vary, the overall picture is one of an increase. In July, the number of foreign workers signed on with social security was 5,000 more than in 2019. At 21% of the total workforce, this was the highest percentage in Spain - 130,994 workers.