The best symptom of a country’s economic recovery is the behavior of its labor market. We are in a difficult time marked by the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but the published data on affiliation and unemployment in April show that the recovery is being robust and that labor reform, which is already generating more and better jobs, has contributed to this.
Just as 100 days have passed since the approval of the labor reform, for the first time in the history of our country, the barrier of 20 has been overcome. millions of people affiliated with Social Security. We have half a million more people working than before the onset of the pandemic.
The mandate of the new labor reform is the firm commitment to the indefinite contract in our country. In other words that is, end the happy temporality. With the data in hand, we see how fixed-term contracts soar: of the 1,450,093 signed contracts, 698,646 are indefinite contracts. Four months ago these contracts accounted for 10% and now almost 50%, ie one in two contracts signed today are indefinite compared to one in 10 four months ago.
Another mandate of labor reform is fight against job insecurity and it is being achieved. There has been an unprecedented reduction in contracts lasting less than a week. Just before the labor reform, they accounted for 70% and today they represent 30%, which has significantly improved the quality of employment, thanks to the incentive mechanism included in the labor reform.
If we read the data from the point of view of unemployment, this month there has been the largest reduction in unemployment at the year-on-year level in the historical series. In one year, unemployment has fallen by almost 900,000 people. Today we have 3,022,000 unemployed people and to find a similar figure in the historical series we have to go back to 2008. During Rajoy’s term, without a pandemic and without war, the unemployment rate came to be in the 27% and the youth unemployment rate at 56%, meaning that out of every 10 young people, almost six were unemployed. Today the youth unemployment rate has dropped 10 points and the gap with European countries is widening.
The data clearly show the benefits that labor reform is generating for our labor market, given the pessimistic predictions that some made. With these results in mind, one would have to ask the 174 MPs who voted against this measure if they would maintain the meaning of their vote today. I am convinced not.
As he said Salvador Island in a recent event on industrial policy of the Campalans Foundation, those who claim to be ‘very left-wing’ and those who claim to be ‘very much in favor of state policies’ have voted’ no ‘to labor reform and voted’ not in the decree of measures to mitigate the effects of the war in Ukraine.
So what’s with this left-wing vote? And what does this vote for state policy have?
The answer is: nothing. And nothing, according to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, is synonymous with non-existent.
The Socialists are celebrating 143 years of history this week, and we are proud and proud to say that throughout our history the word ‘nothing’ has not appeared in our history of events. We are non-conformists, reformists and staunch defenders of people’s rights and freedoms. We do not work to achieve ‘nothing’ and be ‘non-existent’ but on the contrary, we work to achieve ‘a lot’ and so that with our ‘existence’ we can contribute to improving the quality of life of Spaniards.