steviedeluxe

The ones I knew were - yes. Generally they'd already spent some time teaching in Spain, and I suspect it would have been very embarrassing for a language teacher not to have picked up the local tongue. Besides which as a Business language teacher you generally have to go to various company sites and get past security and/or reception to see your clients.

steviedeluxe

Get someone to employ them? Same as the UK. Some choose to work on the black - it's claimed that the black economy is far larger in Spain, but believe me there are plenty of people working on the black even here in London.

steviedeluxe

For those fortunate few who have a reliable job in Spain (employed or autonomo) this site has a pdf link that explains the overall system. If you're lucky enough to have made 30 years contributions, you could end up with a state pension paying 81% of your average salary over the last few years. Without the necessary contributions the state pension is far more miserly like the UK

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/finance...nce-2011-74-en

Fly in the ointment is that Spain , like the UK and other European countries, is finding it more difficult to keep paying out pensions to an increasing pensioner population, so the age of retirement keeps going up.

Rosemary

My neighbour was complaining to me the other day that there are too many Europeans working in the orange groves. She said that when local people are short of cash they normally work in the orange groves in order to pay for food etc but at the moment it is impossible because of people who will work for very low wages. Not sure whether this is part of the black economy or not but it is an indicator of the difficulties this can cause.

Rosemary

angiescarr

Now that would be a good idea. make the entry level lower...they'll get more people starting up!

Rotor

Its only around 10 quid pm in the UK for self employed stamp
Hence much less black workers.

mikelincs

They would get no pension and no free health care, Ex-pat retirees are the better off, free health care and no National insurance to pay. There is a huge support syatem within Spanish families, and this is where help usually comes from in time of need, as unemployment doesn't get paid for long. A huge number of the Brit workers advertising in the local papers ARE working on the black, as if you get them to do work for you, in most cases don't expect to get the paperwork necessary for the work to be legal, and you won't get a legal receipt.

Evelyn72

It is, but if you wanted to move abroad and keep your UK contributions going so you could still have a pension, it's the higher class contribution you have to pay which is about £12.60 a week.

angiescarr

Not sure you're allowed to do that.

Evelyn72

That's what the NI office told me.

Don't know whether you could do both - pay into the UK pot and also the foreign pot - but I do know that if you pay into the UK one, even if you were paying the lower class NI contributions when you were resident, then they automatically move to the higher one if you go abroad.

mikelincs

Funnily enough that is the same commentss as here in the UK, although not orange groves, but the lower paid jobs which people just wouldn't take are in demand now with the government cracking down on benefits.

Rosemary

It is not that they would not take the jobs in the orange groves but that the hours available meant that this had to be worked in conjunction with other minor jobs in order to gain a wage that would pay the bills. A lot of the people used to have to rely on employers being flexible enough to allow for the picking of oranges when required. But now these people have been pushed out of the orange picking so cannot earn sufficient for the bills.

The people who work in orange packing cannot ever rely on a regular wage as they are employed on an hour by hour basis dependant on what has been picked so many in the town are on extremely low wages and no benefits to assist.

Rosemary

whitelinen

Take a look .........

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ni/volcontr/abroad.htm

angiescarr

Thanks for this. Very useful. Given that my OH is still unemployed here after living here a year and has started bidding for contracts all over Europe, It might well be best for him to get in touch with them and protect his UK state pension. As it is I think if anything happened to me he would think about going back anyway.