Spain's construction industry to train immigrants and alleviate labour shortage amid regularisation process

Spain's construction industry is preparing for the extraordinary regularisation that the government approved in April, which will allow more than half a million migrants already living in Spain to obtain residency. The sector sees this as an opportunity to alleviate labour shortage.

With this avalanche of future workers in mind, the construction labour foundation (the employers' association) will launch a training plan for foreign residents in Spain who are in the process of extraordinary regularisation in the most in-demand trades, such as bricklaying, plasterboard installation, tile installation, painting and public works machinery operations.

The regularisation process is a blessing for the construction industry, given the shortage of 700,000 workers in the sector. This issue extends to several branches of activity and business organisations have long been demanding a solution.

The sector sees the extraordinary regularisation as a solution to alleviate the lack of workforce given that foreign labour already represents 26.7 per cent of the total employees in the sector.

The labour foundation's pilot project includes initial advisory actions to define the training process that best fits each candidate; delivery of qualification and requalification training actions; and intermediation work with companies in the sector, so that participants can find employment in construction.

The sector plans a series of short-term, face-to-face training courses ranging from 30 to 60 hours, with the possibility of implementing longer and more specialised training courses in construction.

This qualification and employment programme also includes mandatory occupational risk prevention training, specific to each job or trade.

Following this qualification and requalification, the association will carry out assistance and support actions in career guidance and the active search for employment opportunities in construction. It will also inform companies in the sector with a high demand for professional profiles.

To launch the initiative and with the aim of maximising understanding for migrants, the labour foundation has enabled a series of multilingual resources both in the information phase and in the training and guidance phase.