chummers

I am moving to Spain in next 6 months with my wife who is a hairdresser, she has been self employed for 15 years and my son who is 4. I am a senior manager and have worked in pub retailing and the motor industry. I have a sister who has retired to Spain but I will need any type of work. Can anyone advise me of any opportunities they may be aware of, I do not need to earn the sort of money I have in the UK.

I have thought about a franchise but what? pool cleaning,juice bar, any advice again. We have banked enough money to keep us going two years but rearly need help.

Chummers

Chiclanagir

Please open an Hotel Chocolate in Chiclana...... yummy.

Sharon B

Hello Chummers, which area in Spain are you thinking of moving to?

chummers

Sharon we are moving between Alicante and valencia, we have seen various property Pagero looks promising which is near valencia, sorry uif spelling wrong at work and have not got file in front of me

digdug

where abouts near valencia? it's a tough place to find work here.....

featherbum

Please open a 'boots' in san sebastian oooh how i miss it.
or a topshop.
or a miss selfridge...
the list is endless

good luck with your move!

Splatt

Hi Chummers,
The question is do you have really good Spanish? Even if you do I would strongly recommend moving near to a location with a large expat community. I believe that the Spanish are understandably a little protectionist and would rather employ the services of a national than a foreigner, doubly so considering the rate of unemployment.
So I would choose your location carefully.

I am also a firm believer in that if you are good at something, work hard, and offer good value then you can be succesful in even a saturated market. There's always someone who will drop the ball and let a customer down, if you are there to put things right then you are on your way.

It's the right age to be bringing your son over too.

Good luck,

Ste.

chummers

Steve thanks my wife hairdressing should bring in some money we should last about two years which should allow me time to learn the language and look for opportunities.

I am about to loose my job here first time ever and every job I apply for has at least 20 people going for it.

We have thought about this for years now and made many trips problem is I need to secure a small mortgage whilst I have work!

Agreed I will need to work hard what sort of work do expats want, I am thinking retired people may need things done, are airport runs practical I may need to do a number of things.

Cheers and thanks so much

David

noelrosie

I used to live in hope of finding a 'Pier' furniture/accessory shop in Spain ... 'Casa' seems to be the nearest equivalent but nowhere near as interesting/exciting/good quality ...
However, since the 'Pier' went bust in the UK just before Christmas, I guess that is never going to happen now

chummers

Sorry to here that any suggestions on a franchise

steviedeluxe

I often say that I've never personally heard of anyone who went to Madrid looking for work and failed to do so within a short period. Obviously this may be different now due to the recession, yet the amount of national and international head offices based in Madrid may alleviate this. I'm not too sure why people have an aversion to moving there, especially now that the new transport links make the Med coast only a couple of hours away.

It's worth remembering that there are actually large numbers of expats in Madrid (German, Irish, Americans as well as Ecuadoreans, North Africans, Columbians etc.), just that most of them aren't British (yet the numbers are still greater than you might think). Of course you may rule Madrid out because house prices, rents etc are quite high - one consequence of the higher salaries and opportunities you find there. My advice is to spend a couple of weeks there (with possible day trips to Toledo, Segovia etc), but chat to folk. Seek places like the English language bookshops and Irish pubs; you'll often find very interesting classified adverts on a wall set aside for the purpose. There are freebie English-language magazines too, that have lots of classifieds.

steviedeluxe

I don't know why, but expats always complain about the lack of decent budget furniture (with the possible exception now of Ikea). If you can find good suppliers and site your store in a good residential area, I reckon you could be onto a winner.

featherbum

yeah we were actually talking about that in another thread a minute ago, so expensive here!

also shampoos, cosmetics etc... as i said earlier... boots!

spainboy

Splatt is right.
Your more likely to survive in an expat community area than in an area that's mainly just spanish.From my experience it is gonna be hard finding work right now basically because of the recession.Me personally I would wait for 2 years in the uk til things globally picked up because jobs especially for expats are few and far between.
Maybe trying mobile hairdressing could be an option. I know a hairdresser here very well and the place she worked for is closing down so she wants to try that.At the end of the day people always want their hair cutting so it could be an ok thing.However she has built up a reputation which is the key.Something you cant do overnight as your otherr half will tell you.

Good thing is you have money to last you 2 years.I think your gonna need a chunk of it because things wont come easy. Ive been here 11 years.Im still in my 30s and speak conversational spanish and I have found nothing in 3 weeks of looking.Not even part time bar work.
Id love to paint things rosy for you but I think you would appreciate an honest opinion and I would say try and get something definate before you make the move. Recession has hit Spain hard right now.

Good luck though.

Splatt

Don't be too quick to rush into a franchise either. The ones that are really worthwhile are horrendously expensive, take a Subway franchise for instance, 80,000 to buy the franchise then you have your premises costs and then on top of this the 'mother ship' takes 8% of your turnover. Not profit, turnover. (Please don't quote me on these figures, but I'm sure they're not far off)

Find a business that looks succesful, do tons of research and then copy it.
I think it was Microsoft who had a saying about rival businesses, `copy it, kill it, or buy it`. Seemed to do OK for them!

Ste.