The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, has advocated for the extraordinary regularization of migrant people as a “necessary” measure both for the construction sector and to guarantee access to decent housing.
As he/she has explained, this decision responds to a double reality: on the one hand, the need for labor in a strategic sector; on the other, the situation of vulnerability that thousands of migrant people suffer in Spain.
A sector that demands workers
Rodríguez has highlighted that close to a 20% of construction workers are migrants, in a context in which companies demand more personnel to face the sector's activity.
In this regard, he/she/it has pointed out that both trade union and business organizations had been demanding this regularization, since it would allow to incorporate these workers into the labor market with full legal guarantees and labor rights.
Beyond the economy: a question of rights
The minister has insisted that the impact of the measure is not only economic, but also social. Migrant people in an irregular situation, she explained, face serious difficulties in accessing housing, remaining in many cases exposed to abuses and precarious conditions in the rental market.
Regularizing their administrative situation means, according to the Ministry, a decisive step to facilitate their access to decent housing and improve their living conditions.
From the Government they defend that this measure will allow to advance in social integration and reduce situations of residential exclusion, by offering greater legal and economic stability to this collective.
Furthermore, they consider that it will contribute to ordering the labor market and to strengthening key sectors such as construction, which is experiencing a structural lack of workers. Rodríguez has defined the decision adopted by the Council of Ministers as “an act of justice and dignity”, and has defended that it places Spain as a benchmark in the defense of human rights.