The OECD has praised the recent resistance of the Work market Spanish, that despite the price crisis and the uncertainty derived from 500 days of war in Ukraine has managed to maintain growth rates of the employment without precedents. In quantity and quality. Analysts from the international organization have praised the capacity of the labour reform agreed between the Government, employers and unions to contribute “to improve the quality of employment in Spain”. However, the OECD also doubts the ability of the new discontinuous fixed contracts -the star figure promoted with the reform- to guarantee job security to employees under this formula. “Continuous supervision and regulation may be necessary potentially stricter to guarantee new advances”, they point out.
one in three permanent contracts signed in Spain since the entry into force of the labor reform -January 1, 2022- has been a discontinuous fixed. In a year and a half, more than 2.5 million of these intermittent employment contracts have been signed, a formula that was anecdotal until now. Having a discontinuous fixed contract means being employed for a few months a year and others being discharged from Social Security.
A common formula in the hotel industry, for example, is that there is part of the staff that is registered to work the three summer months and a few weeks at Christmas. Which leaves the worker without pay for the rest of the year, but with the guarantee that he will be called back. If not, the company is required to fire you and pay you compensation.
To increase the “job security“To which the OECD refers, without giving more details, the Executive could increase the severance pay for this group, which would discourage companies from doing without them. Also reinforce the guarantees that in case of increasing the work it will call to a discontinuous landline instead of making a new temporary contract. Or oblige companies to offer a minimum employment time per year, as already included in some collective agreements, among other options. Currently monitoring the correct use of the discontinuous landline and that it does not hide fraudulent labor relations is one of the priorities of the Work inspection.
Slight reduction in unemployment this 2023
That same labor market is beginning to show signs of exhaustion and, like economic growth for the second part of the year, it is cooling off. What will cause the unemployment rate in Spain it remains downward, but its reduction is slight. According to OECD estimates, unemployment will drop from 12.9% with which it closed 2022 -according to INE data- to 12.6% in 2023.
High unemployment rates are a historical burden on the Spanish economy. To the point that, after an expansionary cycle of almost three consecutive years of unprecedented growth in employment, Spain continues to boast one of the highest unemployment rates in the European Union. The OECD estimates that it will end the year at 12.6%, when the average of the 38 states analyzed is close to 5%.
Companies must raise wages
If 2022 was an ‘annus horribilis’ for the pocket of the majority of Spaniards, this 2023 is considered less harmful. In the first quarter of the year the loss of real wages, that is, discounting the inflation effect, was 1.2%, three times less than in the OECD as a whole (-3.8%). This is not because in Spain wages are rising much more than in other countries, but because prices are more moderate. For example, inflation in Spain is currently the lowest in the entire euro area.
Related news
In full debate on whether or not the price crisis has been aggravated by the excessive margins of benefits registered by companies, the OECD considers that, in global terms, “the evidence suggests that there is room for profits to absorb additional increases in wages, at least for low-paid workers & rdquor ;. In other words, most companies have a cushion to raise salaries without having to raise the prices of their products.
However, the OCE also warns that “it will be important to monitor salary dynamics in the coming years to identify any indication of a price spiral and salaries & rdquor ;. The president of the European Central Bank, christine lagardewhich urged companies to raise wages but not prices to avoid the feared second-round effects.