Foreign self-employed thriving in Balearics

MADRID
ALTHOUGH self-employed foreigners are going out of business across Spain three times faster than their Spanish counterparts, the Balearics is the only region in the country where they are actually on the increase.

A report published yesterday by the National Federation for the Self-Employed (ATA) showed that during the first six months of this year, the numbers of self-employed foreigners rose in the Balearics by 6.6 percent, in numerical terms an extra 902.

Elsewhere in Spain, the foreign self-employed have not been so lucky. Worst affected, said ATA's report, has been Castilla-La Mancha where 22.1 percent have been forced out of business, followed by Aragon which has lost 16.6 percent and La Rioja, 16.5 percent. ATA calculated that 6 out of 10 foreign self-employed come from other European Union member states.

The foreign groups most affected in Spain by the recession were the Romanians where numbers of self-employed have plummeted during the first half of this year by 31.8 percent. Following in second place at a distance were the Ecuadorians who lost 13.9 percent of their self-employed. Looking at the worst affected industries, construction has suffered most with 20.1 percent of self-employed losing their work, followed by agriculture and administrative businesses.