The number of employed foreigners exceeded 2.7 million in January, 8.1% more than a year ago

Social Security registered 2,736,169 foreign national insurance contributors in January after discounting seasonality and the calendar effect. This is the highest level of foreign contributors, with 24,056 having been added in the last month. Since February 2020 - before the impact of the pandemic - the system has recorded an increase of 546,748 workers from other countries.

This figure in January represents 13.1% of the total number of national insurance contributors in seasonally adjusted terms.

Average contributors

In average terms and without seasonal adjustment, i.e. in the original series, Social Security registered 2,631,593 foreign contributors this month, 196,034 (8.1%) more than twelve months ago. The percentage of foreign workers out of the total number of national insurance contributors rises in the original series to 12.8%. Compared to December, there are 37,183 fewer members.

Of the total, 852,163 workers come from EU countries (32.4%) and 1,779,430 from third countries (the remaining 67.6%). The largest groups come from Romania (328,464), Morocco (318,750), Italy (173,458), Colombia (174,388) and Venezuela (146,469). Of the total, 56.2% are men and 43.8% are women.

65,511 Ukrainian contributors

Among the various nationalities, there are 65,511 national insurance contributors from Ukraine. This is 18,252 more than in January 2022, prior to the start of the war, representing a growth of 38.62%.

The majority of workers (85.7%) coming from Ukraine are in the General System, i.e. they are salaried workers, and 14.3% are self-employed.

Systems and sectors

Overall, 83.4% of foreign national insurance contributors were in the General Regime, with 2,196,041 workers, which is 8.4% higher than in January 2024. In the last 12 months, ten sectors of activity have grown by more than 10%. Hotels and restaurants is the sector with the greatest increase (13.7%), followed by Construction (11.8%), Health Care Activities (11.5%), Scientific and Technical Activities (10.8%) and Financial Activities (10.8%). Contrarily, it only fell in Activities and Organisations and Extra-territorial Organisations (-0.2%) and the Agrarian special system (-0.9%), remaining practically unchanged in Households.

As for the monthly evolution, the figures follow the same pattern as those of the series for the months of January, with decreases in most sectors.

For its part, the self-employed system has 431,345 foreign contributors. Of all the self-employed people from other countries, 14.8% come from China, 11% from Romania and 8.8% from Italy.

Non official translation