Barcelona is truly an international city, welcoming workers from all over the world. Many expats work within the hospitality industry, either in bars or restaurants in the tourist areas, or the larger hotels in the city. Other expats decide to set up in business themselves, offering household services such as plumbing or construction, or other services such as hairdressing or dog walking.

There are also many jobs for English teachers in either the international schools in and around Barcelona, or the many private language schools. Teaching jobs within the state system are difficult to get due to the complicated oposiciones exam system that needs to be navigated before being able to secure any public job. A knowledge of Catalan is also a requirement for any civil service or public teaching job.

There a number of recruitment agencies within Barcelona, some of them specialising in international and multi-lingual jobs such as Worldwide Headhunters (www.firstworldwideheadhunters.com or Talent Search People with offices at Consell de Cent, 47 or Arago, 346 (www.talentsearchpeople.com).

Temporary Agencies may also be able to find you temporary work ranging anything from a day to six months. The major agency names can be found in the city such as Manpower at Arago, 277 (www.manpower.es and People at Marina, 138 (www.startpeople.es).

Jobs can also be found in English language magazines Barcelona Connect and The Metropolitan, as well as the Sunday edition of the newspaper La Vanguardia.

Job searches online are increasingly popular with the main online jobs listing sites at www.monsters.es and www.infojobs.net.

Once a job is secured, all contracts need to be registered with INEM, the government-run employment centres that are in all Spanish towns and cities. Job hunters can visit the centres to view job openings, a selection of which can also be seen at www.inem.es, and which can also be viewed in English. The website also gives details on Spanish employment law and requirements, and information on claiming unemployment benefits. A full list of INEM offices can be found here.