A report published by Expatica revealed that immigration has been the cause of half of Spain ’s growth over the past five years.  The government’s top economic adviser, Miguel Sebastian, said that immigrants “have improved the employment opportunities of Spaniards and have reduced the rate of structural unemployment,” referring to joblessness that cannot be explained by economic cycles.  

The study also revealed that immigration has boosted the nation’s per capita income by an average of 0.3 percent annually over the past five years.  Sebastian notes that Spain ’s per capita income will exceed that of Italy in 2007 and that of Germany by 2014.  Sebastian says that although immigrants contribute less to the state treasury than their numbers would indicate, they also use fewer services, and so “the balance is positive and will continue being so in the short and medium term.  Things will only change around 2030,” he said, when the immigrants of today are starting to retire, but he insists that “the general effects are positive.”