Working in Spain

Expatriate residents choosing to work and live in Spain frequently buy into hotels and bars, or become English teachers or telemarketing sales representatives. The Spanish economy is in recession and unemployment is high, and Spanish jobs are often reserved for family or friends before they are opened to the public.

As a consequence, foreign residents really need to understand, we often find working for ourselves to be the best option. On the negative side, being self-employed (autonomo) in Spain is a challenge, there is a lot of red tape, and anyway how do you identify a market for your expertise if most of your network are Spanish?

So heartbreaking is the problem that many foreign residents end up leaving making a huge loss and going home where a familiar language and cultural background make finding work easier. Working in Spain doesn't need to be this difficult though, it is possible to be successful whilst living in Spain, and and being your own boss that earns an income for you and your family. Despite the doomsayers, working in Spain can be made easier.

The secret to successfully working in Spain is knowledge. It sounds trite and obvious, however knowing what can be done is crucial, you need to know your skills, and if necessary, you need to improve your skills. We all have expertise in our native language, and there will always be students wanting to learn or practice another language, though in some areas you may face competition from other expats.

Why not try other ideas, Using the Internet, you could conduct business with people in your home country. Hundreds of expatriates in Spain contract with companies in their home country, and several hundred have also discovered how easy it is to create websites, or build shopping carts that they use to sell goods, proving to themselves that it is possible to earn a good income while living in Spain.

Becoming an Internet Marketer isn't all that different from other jobs, you only need to learn new skills to promote your business, for example using social networking sites etc, and knowing how search engines rank websites so that you can reach page one. After that, you can almost run your business on autopilot.

The author is a Ronda expat, and is an active member of various organisations that promote integration between foreign residents and Spaniards. He has recently written about working in Spain.