SPAIN’S economy is buzzing – expanding by over 3% last year and outpacing its European neighbours, as well as the UK.
Some analysts, including JP Morgan, have pointed to the country's remarkably different approach to migration in recent years as the reason.
While in the UK, both the Tory and subsequent Labour Government have battled over “stopping the boats” and bringing down net migration, in Spain they have done the exact opposite.
“Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed-off, poor country,” Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said in October last year. “It’s as simple as that.”
The crux of the argument is that Spain – like countries across Europe – has an increasingly ageing population. It’s also a country that relies heavily on tourism and the hospitality sector which, typically, needs younger workers.
So, Spain opened its doors. And of the 468,000 jobs created across Spain in 2024, around 409,000 were filled by migrants or those with dual nationality.
Now, Scotland is also experiencing a similar demographic problem.
While our population increased last year, it would have fallen if it hadn’t been for migration, given deaths outnumbered births by the highest amount on record.
Scotland also faces particular demographic issues in rural and island communities.
It’s why the Scottish Parliament recently called for the Labour Government to act on a bespoke Scottish visa scheme, given immigration is reserved.
Should Scotland take a leaf out of Spain’s book?
The National spoke with Sarah Kyambi, the director at Migration Policy Scotland.
“I think Scotland, like a lot of countries across the EU and, in fact, across most Western democracies, have gaps in the labour market and ageing populations. So, that also means a decline in the working age population,” she said.
“Migration is one of the tools by which you can hope to manage that, but the difficulty is where our politics and our public sit on this issue at the moment.”
Kyambi added that Spain’s different approach is interesting and the country appears to be benefitting from more migration – although added that the picture is often different when it comes to GDP per capita.
“What we've seen in the UK previously is that migration has added to GDP. It has grown the economy quite a lot, but GDP per capita the gains are more modest because you're spreading them out across more people.
"But, on the other hand, the decline of economies that are aging – the modelling around that – looks concerning,” she said.
The academic highlighted recent projections produced by Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics agency, which looks into how the population of countries in Europe will change with and without immigration.
For the UK, the difference is stark. Without immigration, the population is apparently set to decrease to 48 million by 2100. Meanwhile, with immigration, it is set to rise to 86m. It is currently a little over 68m.
Interestingly, the projection map also indicates that Scotland will be disproportionately impacted by policies seeking to restrict immigration – seeing a larger decrease in population compared with the rest of the UK.
“On the map, Scotland is different from England. Scotland tips into the red, it's declining, whereas England does not. And I think that's where a lot of the policy divergence that you see in terms of the desired direction of travel [between the UK and Scottish Government],” Kyambi said.
When it comes to the particular issues faced by rural communities in Scotland, she said the picture was complicated.
“If you dig further down, the picture is very complicated – even including by local authority.
“But we're seeing a lot of movement, and the difficulty with migration on that front is that our current labour migration system uses salary threshold as its criteria.”
The minimum salary threshold for a “skilled worker visa” in the UK is currently £38,700 per year, although there are some exceptions.
She added: “Salaries will be lower in rural areas. That's just true.”
Kyambi also spoke about the importance of integration.
“I think this is really relevant for Scotland, given where the population needs are, is that we do need to be thinking about integration in new ways. In ways that match up to what's actually going on in our societies and the way in which immigration is changing, and we're not doing that,” she said.
“I do hear that a social cohesion strategy is imminent, it is in the works from the UK Government. I know that we have a new Scots strategy, but that really just applies to refugees and asylum seekers at the moment. But I know there's an appetite to extend that to other groups.”
Kyambi added: “Immigration itself is changing rapidly in terms of its composition. People are coming much more from non-EU countries now. And for Scotland, that's quite a big change.
“We need to understand that change. We need to understand what that means in terms of policy and practice. And we need to start thinking about what integration means when we factor in these new changes.
“And I think there's an awful lot of work on integration that's often very urban-focused because that's where migrants have been. And some of what works in urban areas might not work in rural areas, but that means that we need to think again about how we would make that work. What does it mean to integrate into a village rather than into a city?”
She went on: “I think that's where policymakers and governments are letting us down on the political conversation. Because the political conversation is very limited to just numbers up, numbers down. Do people want it, do people not want it? Rather than saying, look, we're going to have to do this. How do we do it well?"
