Spaniards Seek Jobs in Germany

Richard.G

BERLIN—As Spain's jobs crisis deepens, more young Spaniards are leaving the country in search of greater opportunities in Germany.

The new migration trend highlights the divide between prosperous northern European countries and the fiscally frail south that is at the heart of the euro zone's financial crisis. It also is a threat to Spain's longer-term ability to grow and recover from its financial crisis as thousands of its citizens—especially young, well-educated ones—leave a country incapable of providing them jobs. The country could lose many of its best and brightest, economists say.


The trend is visible at German-language schools in Germany's capital, where a growing number of Spaniards seek to overcome the language barrier to finding a job.

Elena Ballestín, 26 years old, is one of five Spaniards in a class of 17 students at a German-language school in Berlin's trendy Mitte district. She came to Germany a year ago after graduating from the University of Zaragoza with a business degree, struggling to find work.

She lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her German boyfriend and waits tables at a restaurant while she studies the language and looks for a better job. "My parents suffer with me being away, but they think it's better than being unemployed in Spain," Ms. Ballestín says. "And at least I can learn something."

Spain's collapsed real-estate and credit bubbles, combined with rigid labor laws, have left the country with a 21% unemployment rate. According to Spanish government data Tuesday, jobless claims in Spain rose by 77,910 in September and now stand at more than 4.3 million.

Meanwhile, Germany's highly competitive, export-focused economy continues to create jobs, despite slowing growth. Data last week showed jobless claims fell 26,000 in September, and the unemployment rate fell to 6.9% from 7% in August.

Germany needs about 200,000 skilled immigrants a year for its industries, the government estimates. And the country's need for labor is expected to grow as the number of young workers entering the job market declines in coming years, due to Germany's low birth rate.

The Spanish government encourages job-seekers to leave. In January, it signed a cooperation agreement with Germany to push German companies to offer jobs in Germany to out-of-work Spaniards, focusing on the engineering, health and tourism sectors. The arrangement got a publicity boost when German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Spain to meet with Prime Minister José Luis Rodgríguez Zapatero to discuss the matter, among other topics.

Eduardo Rodríguez-Priego, a 37-year-old civil engineer from Madrid, moved to Frankfurt in late 2009 after losing his job at a Spanish real-estate company. He had a brother already living in the German financial capital and decided to try his luck there after nine months of a fruitless search for a job in Spain.

"Four months later I found a job, even though I didn't speak any German," Mr. Rodríguez-Priego said.

Experts say the Spanish emigration trend is only just beginning. Carmen González, an analyst at Madrid-based think tank Real Instituto Elcano, says anecdotal evidence, including a jump in language-school enrollments, points to a rising readiness for Spaniards to look abroad for work. "I think we will certainly see a rise in emigration of young Spaniards, especially those with the most qualifications, in the coming years because of the economic crisis," she said.

Because European Union workers can freely move around the region, no exact data exists on how many Spanish workers have gone to Germany this year. But about 17,000 Spaniards have shown an interest in working in Germany through the new government-backed program alone, says John-Philip Hammersen, spokesman for Germany's employment agency, headquartered in Nürnberg.

"You can see that supply and demand come together well. The qualifications of Spaniards are good, companies have told us," Mr. Hammersen says. The most common problem facing Spanish job applicants is the language barrier, he says.

Manfred Ewel, language-education head at the Madrid office of Germany's official cultural organization, the Goethe Institute, said the campus has seen a 25% jump in enrollments since the visit by Ms. Merkel in February. A big portion of the new students are young engineers, architects and information-technology professionals interested in moving to Germany.  "Our teaching staff has to put in extra hours, also in the evenings and on Saturdays," he said.