The Social Security registered 2,894,162 foreign affiliates in October, after discounting seasonality and the calendar effect, after adding 29,076 employed persons. With two months to go before the end of the year, the number of foreign workers remains at an all-time high.

Since December 2019, before the impact of the pandemic, the system has recorded an increase of 731,763 workers from other countries, i.e. almost 34% more. In the context of overall enrolment, foreign workers account for 13.6% of the total number of employed.

The daily register remained above 2.9 million foreign enrolment for eight days in October and consecutively from the 21st and 25th of the month.

In both the seasonally adjusted and original series, the number of foreign affiliates accounts for 13.6%. If we look at the regimes, in the two main ones, General and Self-employed, they also remain at this percentage. This means that, in the last five years, the share of foreign workers in the total number of Social Security affiliates has increased by more than two points.

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The Social Security system reaches almost 2.9 million foreign affiliates in October

Average enrolment

In average terms and without seasonal adjustment, i.e. in the original series, Social Security registered 2,894,629 affiliates from other countries, an increase of 210,692 in the last year. This is, as in the seasonally adjusted data, the highest number of foreign affiliates in this month’s series.

31.6% are workers from European Union countries. Of all the nationalities, Romania is the country with the highest number of workers, followed by Morocco, Colombia, Italy, Venezuela and China.

Of the total number of affiliated workers from other countries, 1.6 million are men and the number of foreign women is close to 1.3 million, having grown by 34.6% since before the pandemic. The number of female members exceeds 44% of the total number of foreign workers.

More than 70,000 Ukrainian members

Among other nationalities, there are 72,374 members from Ukraine, 25,115 more than in January 2022, when the war had not yet started, an increase of 53.1%.

Most of the workers from Ukraine, about 83.5%, are in the General Regime (salaried workers) and 16.4% are self-employed.

Regimes and sectors

Overall, 83.8% of foreign affiliates were in the General Regime, with 2,425,138 workers. The proportion is similar to that of all workers, around 84% are also included in this General Regime.

In the last 12 months, six sectors of activity grew by more than 10%: Administrative and Supporting Activities (11.8%), Transport and Storage (11.2%), Arts, Entertainment and Recreation (10.8%), Financial Activities (10.5%), Hotels and Restaurants (10.4%) and Health Care and Central Services (10.38%). In addition, other sectors exceed 9%: Trade (9.6%), Electricity, Gas, Steam and Air Conditioning Supply (9.5%), Construction (9.4%), Manufacturing (9.3%) and Water Supply, Sewerage, Waste Management and Remediation Activities (9%).

The distribution by sector shows a diversification in the areas of employment with the highest employment of workers of foreign origin.

High added value activities

On the other hand, this interannual increase is also very notable in high added value activities where a notable growth is observed in sectors such as Financial Activities (10.51%), Information and Communications, which increased by almost 7% and in Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities, with an increase in the last year of 6.5%.

By activity, workers from other countries account for more than 20% of the total number of affiliates in sectors such as: Hotels and Restaurants (28.3%), Activities of Extra-territorial Organisations and Bodies (28.1%), Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry and Fishing (24.2%), and Construction (21.3%). In the Special Household System, nearly 44% are foreign workers, and in the Special Agricultural System, more than 35%.
The Self-Employed Scheme accounted for 463,767 contributors of other nationalities, i.e. 13.7% of the total number of self-employed workers. In the last year, foreign affiliates in this scheme have increased by 7.8%.