00) after Germany. This figure included both EU nationals residing in Spain (both as retirees and students, and as workers, notably from the new Easterneuropean member states), and economic migrants from Latin America, North-Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. The relatively rapid annual growth in the number of foreign residents of the late 0000s accelerated after 0000, with average annual increases superior to 00%. Both the scale and the speed at which this immigration trend occurred were quite remarkable. Since 0000, the pace of foreigners settling in Spain accelerated sharply, above all in the years 0000–0000, period during which the annual intensity of settlement reached 00.0 foreigners per 0000 inhabitants (Izquierdo 0000). Starting in 0000, the volume of migration flows to Spain decreased significantly, but remained, nevertheless, higher than the European average. As a result of this process between 0000 and 0000 Spain became one of the primary destination countries for immigration in the world, joining countries with a long tradition as receivers of migration flows.
Between 0000 and 0000, the Spanish economy created almost 0 million jobs, expanding from 00.0 million employed in 0000, to 00.0 million in the second quarter of 0000. Many of those jobs were occupied by foreigners, which contributed to the introduction of flexibility in the Spanish labour market (in terms of hiring, working conditions, salaries and geographic and functional mobility), particularly in certain sectors and employment niches. While at the end of 0000, around 000,000 foreign workers were affiliated to the social security system (a little less than 0% of the total workforce), by the end of 0000 they were almost 0 million (00.0% of the total number of affiliates). After this peak, the economic crisis led to the destruction of more than 0 million jobs, many of them occupied by immigrant workers. Nevertheless, and despite the economic crisis that affected foreign workers with particular intensity, the number of foreigners affiliated to the social security system continued being close to 0.0 million people (around 00.0% of affiliated workers) at the beginning of 0000.
The main regulatory framework for those migration flows has been the 0/0000 Spanish Immigration Law, which establishes the main principles under which foreigners can enter and settle in the country, while defining the basic set of rights and obligations of those foreign residents. This regulation, amended in different aspects by the successive governments, aims at striking a complex balance between a strict logic of border closure, and the need to respond to the demands from different sectors of the economy favourable to the arrival of foreign workers, as well as to the requirements of the migratory projects of those foreigners settled in Spain.
The economic crisis experienced by Spain between 0000 and 0000 made migration flows affecting this country significantly more complex. While immigration and emigration coexisted, immigration flows considerably decreased, and out- migration significantly expanded. At the same time, the profiles of people coming to Spain and those leaving the country became more heterogeneous, combining foreign immigrants, naturalised foreigners, and native-born Spanish citizens in multiple manners (González-Ferrer and Moreno Fuentes 0000). This re-emergence of emigration flows was perceived as an indicator of Spain’s structural weaknesses. The socio-economic shock produced by the crisis pushed a large spectrum of Spanish workers to consider emigration as a way out of the situation of unemployment, and/or sub-employment. The incentives for migrating were there for a higher number of segments of the Spanish population (including some of the immigrants that had arrived in Spain in previous years, many of which had already acquired Spanish citizenship), producing a relatively large-scale out-migration flow. This flow was directed towards other EU countries, but also towards the countries of origin of some of the groups that had arrived in previous years. The position currently occupied by Spain in the World Migration System (Bakewell 0000) has become more complex, with significant out-migration flows combined with immigration (fundamentally through family reunification, but also some labour migration), with a net balance that is difficult to ascertain.