Argentine Workers in Spain: Filling Skills Gaps & Driving Growth

Spain’s employment figures have reached a record high, but a closer look reveals a significant increase in the number of Latin American workers filling jobs across the country. The trend highlights shifting demographics within the Spanish labor market and raises questions about economic opportunities both within Spain and in Latin America.

President Pedro Sánchez recently highlighted that over 22 million people are currently employed in Spain, a figure representing nearly 44 percent of the country’s total population. However, the data also shows that the number of Latin American workers in Spain has more than doubled since 2019, now exceeding one million.

Among these workers, Argentinians represent a substantial portion, ranking as the fifth-largest national group from Latin America employed in Spain, with almost 70,000 individuals contributing to the Spanish economy through both traditional employment and self-employment.

Colombians, Venezuelans, Peruvians, and Ecuadorians make up the top four Latin American groups working in Spain. However, official data from the Spanish Social Security system indicates that Argentinians are particularly prominent in specific sectors, leading in fields such as education, scientific and technical activities, commerce, information technology, communications, and the arts.

Agustina Mirowski, a 38-year-old from Monte Grande, Argentina, moved to Spain in 2017 after meeting a Canadian man living in Barcelona. The move represented a significant shift in her life, leaving behind family and friends.

Mirowski had been studying Administration at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and later completed a postgraduate degree in Marketing at the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA).

In Barcelona, she pursued a master’s degree in Human Resources and began working at IESE Business School.

“In Career Services, I organized events for students and tried to help them find opportunities in the job market,” Mirowski explained in an interview from Madrid.

After a period in Canada, which she described as a difficult adjustment, she and her partner decided to relocate to Madrid in 2021, seeking a new start in a city where neither had previously lived.

The couple now reside in the Salamanca neighborhood, near Retiro Park, and have two young children, ages three and seventeen months.

Currently on maternity leave, Mirowski works in Human Resources at Amazon, benefiting from the company’s flexible leave policies.

“In Barcelona, it was difficult to find work because, despite my experience in Buenos Aires, I didn’t have a resume formatted with the terms Spanish employers are used to,” she recalled. “For example, I was listed as a ‘Human Resources Analyst,’ and they didn’t know what that was.”

Previously, she had worked at ExxonMobil in Buenos Aires, focusing on benefits administration for Canadian employees, handling inquiries and calculating taxes.

What explains the success many Argentinians find when they move across the border?

Mirowski believes that “the economic chaos back home gives us a lot of experience that we aren’t even aware of. We’re good at solving problems creatively, and we’re quick on our feet, which surprises people. I think that’s something we excel at.”

Latin Americans now constitute the second-largest group of foreign workers in Spain, following Europeans.

El País reported that Argentinians are the only group among the five main Latin American nationalities contributing to the Spanish labor force who do not primarily reside in Madrid, but instead choose Barcelona.

Andalucía is another favored destination for Argentinian workers.

Martín Tabares, 36, formerly from Lanús, a suburb of Buenos Aires, is registered as self-employed with the Spanish Social Security system. “I’m working as a commercial manager for four countries for an English-language book publisher here in Spain,” he said from Málaga, where he currently lives.

Tabares arrived in Spain in 2022 on a student visa. “The digital book platform in Madrid I work for facilitated my visa,” he explained.

He holds a degree in Public Relations from the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) and an MBA from the Universidad de San Andrés.

“But fundamentally, I’m an English teacher,” he emphasized. He also works as an oral examiner for Cambridge, administering English speaking exams internationally. “You can take exams anywhere in the world with your examiner number,” he added.

Tabares also founded his own marketing and communications consultancy, based in Argentina but with clients in Spain, offering branding, social media management, and communication services.

“I pay social security here in two categories, for education through the publisher, and for communication through my consultancy,” he clarified.

“I took a marketing course at a Spanish university as part of a postgraduate program, which was good, but in my opinion, it doesn’t have the same demand as an MBA or a degree in Argentina. In that sense, I think Argentinians come very well prepared.”

“Also, I see it with Argentinian colleagues – we’re work-oriented. No one even considers saying, ‘I’m clocking out at three on a Friday,’ like they do in Spain, because that doesn’t exist in Argentina,” he said.

“I came with a student visa to do a Master’s in Digital Marketing & Communication in 2021, and that visa allowed me access to what they call ‘prácticas’ here, which are like internships in Argentina,” explained Felicitas Buenaventura.

Born 30 years ago in 25 de Mayo, a town in Buenos Aires province, she now lives in the Chamberí neighborhood of Madrid.

“I started working in Argentina at 21, and in Spain, I had to start over at 25. I pieced together visas that allowed me access to different types of work contracts,” she recalled.

“It was four years of hard work, not giving up, and also finding an employer willing to renew my visa. That also speaks to how hardworking and responsible Argentinians are.”

“We come from a culture of a lot of sacrifice, and that’s highly valued here because I think Spain and Europe, in general, have advantages that we don’t have,” she said.

Her professional journey in Spain includes several marketing departments in startups, where she focused on customer communication and support. “I came from multinationals and started my journey in startups, but after three years, I returned to a multinational,” she noted. “I’m currently working at Insight, a technology company based in the United States, but with offices in Europe, one of which is in Madrid, and I focus on communication and support for implementing artificial intelligence in companies.”

“I came alone, completely alone, with no one here to welcome me,” Felicitas said. “It was almost a leap of faith, because I was strongly convinced that I would succeed, and I made it happen.”

She has been dating Iñigo for a year, and he will join her for a visit to her family in Argentina this summer.

However, she regrets not being able to stay home. “I worked really hard. I graduated *cum laude* from the UBA and also finished with a high average at the UCA (where she completed a postgraduate degree). There’s a significant brain drain. It’s a shame that I don’t feel completely secure enough to develop my career in my country. That’s really sad.”

“They say he always has a plan.” That’s how vibbia, the production company he founded in Madrid last year, describes Gerónimo Videla Nebbia on its website.

“I didn’t come to Spain and immediately become self-employed,” he clarified.

“I arrived in Spain on a student visa in October 2022 for a Master’s in Digital Marketing & E-Commerce at the EAE Business School,” Gerónimo explained from Castelar, Buenos Aires province, where he traveled to celebrate his 27th birthday with family and friends.

Upon graduating, he completed an internship at a company in Castilla-La Mancha. When his visa was about to expire, “I started discovering the different types of visas available: one for job seekers, another if you already have a formal job offer. The company in Castilla-La Mancha offered me a work sponsorship visa to work as an employee. They would sponsor my visa, but I had to stay with the company for at least a year,” Gerónimo explained. “I wasn’t uncomfortable, but I knew it wasn’t my place.”

He fulfilled his commitment, and when he went to renew his permit, “I discovered that my status had been modified: I could not only work as an employee but also as a freelancer. My work permit was extended until 2028.”

He then launched his own company, a hybrid agency combining communication and production, with his brother Tobías as the photographer and videographer. His clients include several Argentinian brands – gourmet empanadas, premium meats – established in Spain.

“I always kept in mind that education opened doors for me,” Gerónimo said, now a UCA representative in Madrid.

“I received a scholarship at the UCA because my father was a professor. The tuition, at the time, was something we couldn’t afford. And for everything else, I took advantage of opportunities as they arose.”

“Argentinians are go-getters. We’re always proposing things,” Gerónimo defined. “And I always remember what a Spanish friend told me: ‘Your neighborhood’s limits are too small, and the world is very big.’”

“They say she always has a plan.” That’s how Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the regional president of Madrid, responded during a heated exchange with Vox in a session of the Madrid Assembly last week. Vox had accused her of encouraging immigration. “I say someone will have to clean their houses, someone will have to harvest their crops, and someone, gentlemen of Vox, will have to lay the bricks of the houses where we will all live,” Ayuso retorted.

However, the popular narrative that immigrants come to Spain only as unskilled labor or to take jobs from locals is becoming outdated.

“The reality in Spain and Europe is that the population pyramid is starting to take the shape of a nuclear bomb. That is, an inverted triangle, with a very large population in the upper part, those over 50 and 60 years old, and a base of the pyramid practically nonexistent,” explained Lucila Rodríguez-Alarcón, director of the Fundación porCausa, which specializes in the study of migration.

“And when we talk about labor mobility phenomena, we’re talking about a population filling the space that has been left blank to have the social welfare models we aspire to,” she emphasized.

“It’s not just about agriculture or caregiving. It’s about the entire production system. Migrant people and second-generation migrant people occupy increasingly conventional spaces,” she clarified.

“I think that trope that only unskilled labor is needed is not true. Destination societies offer a complete, whole social space,” Rodríguez-Alarcón said. “It’s that gap that the destination society is not able to fill itself,” she added.