La Seguridad Social registered a total of 88,353 foreign affiliates in Castilla-La Mancha in February, a decrease of 1.08% compared to the previous month, with a loss of 966 workers, making it the only region to experience a decline in this period.
Compared to February of the previous year, foreign affiliates in the region increased by 7.8%, as reported on Monday by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migrations.
By provinces, Albacete recorded 13,529 affiliates, adding 186 more workers, while Cuenca had 13,407, increasing by 33 workers. On the other hand, Guadalajara decreased by 494 workers to 16,954; Toledo saw a decrease of 345 foreign workers to 30,597, and Ciudad Real experienced a decrease of 344 to 13,866 foreign workers.
Nationally, Social Security gained an average of 31,369 foreign affiliates in February, a 1.1% increase from the previous month, reaching a total of 2,874,398 foreign workers by the end of the second month of 2025, the highest for a February.
Out of the total foreign affiliates at the end of February, 898,529 were from EU countries (31.2%) and 1,975,868 from third countries (68.8%). The largest groups of foreign workers come from Morocco (350,433), Romania (335,223), Colombia (220,030), Italy (192,544), and Venezuela (178,187).
Furthermore, the system has 73,231 affiliates from Ukraine, 25,653 more than in February 2022, before the start of the war initiated by Russia in the country, representing a 54% increase.
In seasonally adjusted terms, foreign affiliation to Social Security rose by 15,804 workers in February compared to the previous month (4,204 of them self-employed), reaching a total of 2,971,811 workers, a new historical high and a 7.6% increase from a year ago.
Since the implementation of the labor reform in 2022, the system has added 604,592 workers from other countries, a 26.6% increase. Consequently, the Ministry highlights that 44.1% of the employment created in the last three years corresponds to foreign workers.
Foreign workers represent 13.8% of the total contributors, an increase of six tenths compared to a year ago.
Out of the total foreign workers, 1.6 million are men and nearly 1.2 million are women. The Ministry emphasized that the number of female foreign affiliates to Social Security has grown by 32.6% since before the pandemic, now representing over 43% of the total foreign contributors.
FOREIGN AFFILIATES IN CONSTRUCTION RISE BY 3.7% IN THE MONTH
In terms of regimes, the majority of foreigners are enrolled in the General Regime, which closed February with 2,398,066 foreign affiliates, accounting for 83.4% of the total and a 1.1% increase from January.
On the other hand, the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA) ended February with 471,559 foreign contributors, a 0.9% increase from the previous month and 8.2% higher than a year ago.
Within the General Regime, the sector that gained the most foreign contributors in February compared to the previous month, both in absolute and relative terms, was construction, which increased its number of foreign workers by 3.7%. This was followed by education, with a 2.9% increase.
The Special Agricultural System (under the General Regime) saw a monthly increase of 1.5% in foreign affiliates, while the Domestic System experienced a decrease of 0.6%. The latter has seen a decrease of 11.3% in foreign contributors over the past year.
In annual terms, two sectors showed double-digit growth. Transportation and storage had the highest increase in foreign affiliates, with a growth of 24.8%, followed by water supply and sanitation activities and waste management (+11.9%).
They were followed by administrative activities (+9.7%), health activities (+9.6%), construction (+9.4%), manufacturing industry (+9.3%), and hospitality (+9.1%).
The Ministry highlighted that the annual growth in foreign affiliation is also «very significant» in high value-added activities such as financial activities (+9.5%), information and communications (+7.2%), and professional, scientific, and technical activities, with a 7.6% increase in foreign affiliates over the past year.
ONLY CASTILLA-LA MANCHA LOSES FOREIGN CONTRIBUTORS IN FEBRUARY
By autonomous communities, the average affiliation of foreign workers increased in February in all autonomous communities compared to the previous month, except for Castilla-La Mancha, where it decreased by 966 contributors (-1.08%).
The largest monthly increases, in absolute terms, were seen in Andalusia (+8,004 foreign contributors), Catalonia (+6,346), and the Balearic Islands (+4,192).