The Labor Inspectorate detected in Lleida 123 undocumented workers in a situation of exploitation during 2024, in a balance that also reflects 651 interventions and sanctions to employers for a total amount of 1.2 million euros. All of them were paid in hand and carried out their activity outside of Social Security and the corresponding taxation.
The data show sustained pressure on the irregular labor market in the demarcation. In 2024, 108 detected cases were recorded, a figure lower than that of the most immediate previous years, with 293 in 2023, 543 in 2022, and 309 in 2021. Even so, in the accumulated total of the last five years, the Inspectorate has brought to light 1,276 workers in a situation of exploitation in Lleida.
A phenomenon that remains at high levels
The period between 2021 and 2025 leaves almost 1,300 episodes of labor exploitation surfaced in the demarcation. The comparison with the previous historical series reinforces that dimension. Between 2008 and 2021, the threshold of one hundred cases in a year was exceeded only once, when 161 were registered in 2016.
The first data from 2025 point to 37 episodes of labor exploitation of foreigners in Lleida in just two and a half months. If this trend were to continue, the annual projection would be 177 episodes, above the close of 2024.
More foreign population and few regularization paths
This scenario coincides with an increase in the population born in other countries in the Lleida demarcation, which has gone from 88,000 to more than 115,000 people after the pandemic. That collective already represents more than a quarter of the register.
"Only 185 foreign citizens with stable residence in the demarcation obtained last year the residence and work papers by arraigo" - Núria Gil, delegate of the Government of the Generalitat
The Generalitat handles the estimate that around 7,500 citizens born in other States could benefit in Lleida from the extraordinary regularization process. The draft decree set its development between April 1 and June 30 and contemplated, among other requirements, asylum seekers and citizens of foreign origin who resided in the State before July 31 of last year.
The submission of the application will grant the right to a provisional document that will enable to work, a measure called to reduce part of the irregular employment pool detected in the demarcation.
Union complaints about the organization of the process
In parallel, the CSIF union has demanded from the Government Delegation in Catalonia that it guarantee the priority participation of the staff of the Immigration Offices in the regularization. The organization denounces a lack of information, transparency, and planning, in addition to the exclusion of staff from Lleida, Girona, and Tarragona from the first phase of the process.
The union also maintains that professionals from other services or from entities such as Correos and Tragsa are being resorted to, with an offer of overtime pay. While this extraordinary procedure is being outlined, the Inspection's figures in Lleida keep the focus on an entrenched problem that fully affects workers in a situation of special vulnerability and sectors where the underground economy continues to have scope.