Brain drain hits Spain

The Spanish population is shrinking for the first time in recent history due to a slow but steady wave of emigration.

Highly-educated Spaniards are searching for work in different countries, as well as hundreds of thousands of immigrants returning home. Despite Spain’s high unemployment rates, many of the people leaving the country are employed but are simply searching for better working conditions, less red tape in the business environment and higher pay.

Literature professor Concha Caballero describes the emigrants as the “lost generation”, and fears that the loss to Spain will lead it to becoming “backward”, both intellectually and technologically, reports the website Monsters and Critics.'

Unemployment in Spain is the EU’s highest at 21.5 per cent, and according to the IMF the economy will shrink by another 1.7 per cent over the next 12 months, offering no relief to the employment crisis. These stark facts led 50,000 more people to emigrate from Spain than immigrate into it in 2011.

The return of many different nationalities to their own countries, as well as native Spaniards leaving in search of work and a relatively low birth rate is predicted to cause the populations to drop from 46.1 to 45.5 million in the next ten years, statistics body INE predicts.