The Valencia Community, including the broader region of Spain, has long been viewed as a destination for skilled work, yet data shows only a small share of arriving foreigners secure high‑quality positions. In 2020, just about one in eight foreign workers held roles rated as high‑skill in the Valencian Community, with the majority finding work in lower‑tier occupations such as housekeeping, cleaning, hospitality, or retail roles.
That year coincided with the Covid‑19 pandemic, a period when international mobility slowed. A total of 9,485 individuals came to the Valencian Community on work permits from abroad, a decline from 9,962 in 2019, reflecting restrictions on economic activity and especially tourism during 2020. Nationwide, Spain saw a different trend, rising from 114,841 to 119,639 authorizations, underscoring regional contrasts. In Valencia, tourism‑reliant areas faced the sharpest impact, with Alicante showing the weakest behavior in this sector. The province experienced a drop in work permits from 4,341 to 4,030, while Castellón and Valencia also registered shifts in their numbers.
High‑level occupations emerge as a small fraction of the inbound workforce. Of the 9,485 workers who arrived in 2020, only 1,154 sought senior positions. Within this subset, 309 held managerial or executive roles, 326 were professionals in technical or scientific fields, 229 were skilled workers in manufacturing outside machine operation, 48 were skilled workers in agriculture, forestry, or fisheries, and 239 were skilled construction workers not including machine operators.
By contrast, the service sector attracted a larger share of foreign workers. Domestic workers and cleanliness-related roles led with 2,138 positions, followed by restaurant service staff at 1,013, agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers at 859, and shop assistants at 839. Across Spain, these patterns converge on top roles, though the ordering differs: domestic workers, farm workers, waiters, and clerks fill high ranks nationwide.
Within the Valencian Community in 2020, authorizations represented 7.9 percent of all Spanish authorizations, a share slightly down from 2019. Yet it is notable that managers and executives accounted for 13.8 percent of regional authorizations. Restaurant workers and commercial workers showed stronger representation at 10.8 percent and 11.7 percent, respectively, while skilled manufacturing workers fell to around 7 percent.
Across major sectors, foreign workers authorized in the Valencia region predominantly joined services, with about six thousand one hundred fifty‑eight permits in this category, nearly two‑thirds of the total. Agriculture, construction, and industry each accounted for smaller portions, and a portion of permits covered unclassifiable activities. A minority of workers—roughly four hundred thirteen—arrived to work independently rather than for a local employer.
These trends help explain the structure of the regional labor market, where foreign workers continue to populate service roles at the front lines of hospitality, retail, and household services, while a smaller share advances into managerial, technical, and manufacturing posts. The data thus reflect a balance between regional economic activity, pandemic‑driven mobility effects, and the national distribution of authority and opportunity in Spain as a whole, with Valencia presenting a snapshot of how these forces unfold at the regional level.