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Asylum seekers are legally entitled to start working 6 months after their application for asylum is officially accepted, while their application is being examined.
Once the first 6-month period is over, applicants may request the renewal of their “red card” (tarjeta roja), in which it will appear that they are authorised to work in Spain with the term of validity of the document that has been issued.[1] There are no other criteria or requirements for them to obtain a work permit, which is valid for any labour sector.
Due to this, and to facilitate their social and labour insertion, reception centres for asylum seekers organise vocational and host language training.
Labour integration supportive schemes offered to asylum seekers within the reception system include services like personalised guidance interviews, pre-employment training, occupational training, active job seeking support.
However, asylum seekers face many obstacles to accessing the Spanish labour market in practice. Many of them do not speak Spanish at the time they receive the red card. Additionally, the recognition of their qualifications is a long, complicated and often expensive procedure. They also face discrimination due to their nationality or religion.[2]
In March 2020, the State Secretary for Migration adopted an instruction addressed to the Autonomous Communities (which are in charge of the protection and guardianship of unaccompanied migrant children), with the aim of providing work permits to adolescents aged between 16 and 18. The measure aimed at improving the situation of unaccompanied migrant children and ensuring access to the labour market within the same conditions as Spanish nationals.[3]
[1] Article 32 Asylum Law; Article 13 Asylum Regulation.
[2] Federación S.O.S. Racismo, ‘Informe anual sobre el racismo en el Estado español – 2022’, December 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/3JiAvpo.
[3] Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones, Secretaría de Estado de Migraciones, ‘Instrucción 1/2020 de la Secretaría de Estado de Migraciones por la que se habilita a trabajar a menores extranjeros en edad laboral’, 6 March 2020, available at: https://cutt.ly/btUCk4z; El País, ‘El Gobierno facilitará el permiso de trabajo a los menores migrantes’, 7 March 2020, available at: https://cutt.ly/ktUHEK2.