Mehdi (33 years old) is a tourist guide in Casablanca, the most populous city in Morocco. “I like to teach my city and do it in Spanish,” he explains in the immediate vicinity, the third largest in the world. “I know how to speak it because I have spent many summers there with my family. My uncles work at a restaurant in Benalmádena, in Malaga. I know many people who have emigrated to Spain, ”he says. His family crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in the 1980s, long before Fatima Kahoul Elhais. “I arrived in 2003, next to my mother and my brothers. My father settled before, in the nineties, ”says this neighbor of Palencia, 31. He is a specialist in occupational risk prevention and his father is a truck driver. They, the uncles of Mehdi and many other Moroccans work in Spain. They form a community that grows strongly in recent years, to such an extent that they are already the main foreign workforce of the country.
The Romanians have held first place in recent years, at least since 2012, when those of Social Security begin. And it is not that the number of Romanian workers has fallen (there are so many now as a year ago and almost the same as a five years), is that Moroccan grows strongly. The 343,188 members of Moroccan nationality that notifies Social Security in January are 24,400 more than in the same month of the previous year, 90,200 more than in 2019 and 158,500 more than a decade ago. The only community that has grown more since 2014 (161,894 more workers). After Morocco and Romania (329,809), the most affiliated countries in Spain are Colombia (217,070), Italy (189,975) and Venezuela (176,333), numbers that go to more: jobs created in 2024 were.
Ahmed Khalifa, president of the, explains that Moroccan immigration has an economic root. “They come to Spain to improve their situation and that of their relatives,” he says. He believes that the reinforcement, promoted in the last reform of the, may be helping that many Moroccans join the social security records. “They are mostly young, who now has a way to enter the labor market,” adds Khalifa, who also points to change with respect to guardians, are easier to obtain the papers and work.
“We are going to better,” reflects Khalifa, a resident in Malaga, who at the same time recognizes serious problems. It highlights the sector distribution of its community, an idea in which Kahoul abounds: “There are specific sectors in which you imagine that a Moroccan worker must be and it is very difficult to get out of there. And they are jobs with hard, very precarious conditions, that nationals do not want. They are sectors reserved for immigrants. ” They are employed in agriculture, livestock and fishing, one of the sectors with worse remuneration of the economy (, in front of the average of 2,273). To put these figures in context, it should be noted that on average only 5% of the total number of affiliates work in the field. Moroccans are also more in domestic employment, hospitality or construction, while almost non -existent in banks, media or schools.
Elwali Bocharga is one of those more than 100,000 Moroccans in the primary sector. “The field is always very hard. Here you have to endure heat, rain, whatever comes, ”he says at 33. “Do you know why we work in the field? Because it is the first job they offer you, it is what you find most in Spain being Moroccan. Then you may go to a hotel or restaurant, but first to the field, especially if you come without the language, ”adds this 33 -year -old worker. Mohammed Alami, president of Itran Association of Friends of the Moroccan people, regrets that many Moroccans used in the field are “in slavery conditions, charging 15 or 20 euros a day; We cannot allow it. ” He lives in Barcelona, capital of autonomy in which 27% of Moroccans in Spain reside. The other communities with the greatest presence are Andalusia (19%), Murcia (10.5%) and the Valencian Community (10.3%)
Over -end: “They don’t give us opportunities”
Sabah Yacoubi has also worked in very poorly paid sectors, such as domestic employment. “I spent many years without being discharged in Social Security, throwing. I was also in a canning ship, where they paid us badly, late and in B. It is terrible, ”he laments this 45 -year -old Moroccan, president of the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers of Murcia. He studied law and has tried to exercise in Spain ,. “It happens even in jobs of not very high salaries, but that are considered something better. I have barely seen Moroccan workers in a Mercadona or the English Court, ”he says.
It is a problem similar to that denounces Anas Khouder, 27 years old and resident in Granada: “I studied in a Spanish school in Morocco and I have done the career of labor relations at the University of Granada, but I do not find work of mine. I think that Moroccans only love us for the positions that the Spaniards do not want. They are very worthy sectors, but those we have studied can do other things. Or you accept those jobs or leave. It’s something that didn’t expect me. ” If you end up getting a position in human resources, it ensures that you will “get in mind” qualified foreigners. “We want to work, like everyone else.”
Khouunder’s formation is similar to that of Kahoul, who has found his work. “As my parents did not have the opportunity to study, my brothers have always insisted to do it to do it. I have specialized in occupational risk prevention and I am a superior technique, ”he says. During his training stage he developed the end of degree work, Moroccan migration and labor market in Spain. A panoramic vision. In thanks says: “To my parents, who emigrated in search of a better future for them and their children.”
When the search for that future breaks, when Kahoul’s panorama does not materialize and the Khouunder is encaled, frustration arrives. “We are seeing this with second generation young people, who have been born here, do not speak Arabic and see that they do not have the same opportunities. This generates a rebellion for society, which complicates coexistence. We cannot accept that there are second citizens, ”says Khalifa. Yacoubi insists: “There is a generation that has not emigrated and suffers the same discrimination, which is labeled by their names and surnames.”
Only 26% of women
Although Moroccans have just overcome Romanians in the number of social security affiliates, in population terms they were already the main community. In 1998 () there were 111,043 people of Moroccan nationality in Spain, above British (75,600) and Germans (60,495). More than two decades later they are also the most numerous group (883,243 in 2022, the last data of the INE), with 260,000 inhabitants more than the Romanians. It is a difference much higher than that occurs in number of workers, which is explained (among other reasons) for the least participation of Moroccan women in the labor market.
Of the total Moroccan affiliates to social security, only 26% are women. It is a brutal difference with respect to the proportion of Spanish, Romanians (48%), Italian (43%), Colombian or Venezuelan (both 49%), the other most numerous nationalities in the labor market. Compared to other African countries, the difference is even greater than that of Morocco: of the 54,665 Senegalese affiliates, only 12% are women.
“One of the keys to explaining this is the family model of Morocco. It is very standardized: man is livelihood in the work context and women remain in the internal field. This is changing, but is much more slowly than in Spanish and Western society as a whole, ”reflects Mohammed Azahaf. He has been head of the Cabinet of the Ministry of State for Migration and is now PSOE Program Coordinator. This macho cast of the roles has barely changed in recent years: in January 2012 (first data available) they were 25.2% and are now 26.2%. This percentage rebounds every year in May, coinciding with the agricultural season, when it reaches around 29%.
“We are very concerned, we have to get the Moroccan woman to enter the labor market. They are very little qualified, ”he laments Alami, such as Yacoubi:“ If there are more inspections it would be seen that there are many Moroccans taking care of the elderly, most of them without high in Social Security, but do not report not to lose their work. They suffer from work racism, which also occurs in access to housing. It is more difficult to access a rent. ”
More in the future
Azahaf believes that the Moroccan community in Spain will continue to grow in the coming years: “Although working conditions are improving in Morocco, in Spain they are still much better. And geographically it is very close. In addition, professionalization in Morocco is being given in intermediate sectors, such as drivers and welders, which are just the type of positions that are needed in Spain, ”. For its part, Khalifa anticipates that the flow can be mitigated by the “” in Morocco, “especially in the northern zone, but there will continue to be a culture of living immigration.” As Azahaf, he believes that the “need for the work of Spain” will maintain the attraction of Moroccan workers.
This politician arrived in Spain in the 60s. Despite the cold of early March, he dedicates a Sunday morning to swim at sea. “I have met many Spaniards, many who came here to work during Franco’s time. Now you are the ones who receive the Moroccans, ”he says as he dries. He assures that these emigrant Spaniards worked “everything, what they could, just like the Moroccans who now go there.” Part of his family lives in Spain, such as Bocharga, the farmer of La Palma: “I have a cousin who lives and works in Denmark. His neighbor is a Spanish immigrant. ”
