The ins and outs of unemployment and the assimilation of recent immigrants in Spain

In this paper we study the assimilation (in employment terms) of the recent wave of immigration in Spain for the period 2002-2006. Besides the picture of heterogeneity that emerges from the origins of the workers, we differentiate the immigrants by their year of arrival in Spain (old and new immigrants). Following Shimer (2005) and using data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey we calculate the job finding and the job separation rates. Over all the period, immigrants show higher job finding and job exit rates. We also present a search and matching model with search intensity, where native people, new immigrants and old immigrants compete in the labor market. The simulated model is able to reproduce the differences observed in their job finding rates.