Spain will try to persuade jobless immigrants to leave by offering to pay them a lump sum and then provide unemployment benefits in their home countries, the government said yesterday.
The move continues a radical policy shift by Spain's Socialist government, which granted an amnesty to 700,000 illegal immigrants in 2004, but this year said it would slash the number of new work permits and limit family reunion visas.
With unemployment jumping by a quarter in a year to 2.5 million, the government is worried that immigrant workers will not find jobs and will overstretch public services.
"This decree will helps us manage immigration flows," Labour Minister Celestino Corbacho told a news conference.
Yesterday's law will give almost 300,000 unemployed immigrants the option to be paid two years of benefits if they leave the country.
An initial 40 per cent would be paid as a lump sum before they leave and the rest gradually once they return home.
The sums involved vary greatly depending on individual factors such as how long an immigrant had contributed to the Spanish social security system.
Immigrant groups have complained that the measure does not provide enough money for it really to be worth their while to go back and also that it brands foreigners as a problem.
"The immigrant stops being someone who brings wealth and becomes someone we want to get off our backs," said Juan Carlos Rois of AESCO, which represents Latin Americans in Spain.
The government's offer will not be open to Spain's largest immigrant community, Romanians, or residents in Spain from other European Union member states.
Over 10 per cent of Spain's population is made up of immigrants who have arrived in the country over the last decade to fill low-paid job vacancies in the once-booming construction industry and the restaurant and commerce sectors.
A punctured property bubble has left these two pillars of growth crumbling and many analysts expect the Spain to enter recession in the second half, a sharp fall from the robust 3.7 per cent GDP rise last year.