Labor plans to convert 100,000 temporary jobs into permanent ones next year

by time news

A waiter on a terrace in Madrid. / Oscar Chamorro

For the first time, it will subject all contracts to control thanks to a new massive data analysis tool

Amparo Estrada

The Labor Inspectorate expects to convert 100,000 temporary contracts into indefinite ones next year thanks to its controls on their legality. After the labor reform approved in December 2021, the contract for work or service disappears, the contracts are presumed to be concluded for an indefinite period of time and there is only one fixed-term contract, which may be concluded due to production circumstances or by substitution of the worker. specifying precisely the cause that enables them (productive or substitution) and their connection with the expected duration.

The control of this type of contract will translate into those one hundred thousand new permanent ones, which represents an increase of 11.1% with respect to the execution planned for this year of conversion of 90,000 temporary jobs into permanent ones after having investigated nearly half a million contracts. These figures leave a ratio that one in five temporary agreements does not comply with the law.

However, next year, Labor plans to check all employment contracts with a new tool, the HLF (Fraud Fighting Tool), which will allow, through the massive analysis of databases, to investigate the entire universe of contracts.

The inspection activity of the Ministry of Labor will be reoriented to face, according to the Executive, the “weakening of working conditions produced in previous years, recover labor rights, and improve the quality of employment and working conditions.”

The inspection will focus on the abuse of temporary contracts, especially in young workers, in the fraudulent use of part-time contracts and in the fraudulent use of discontinuous permanent contracts. Given the relevance acquired by this type of employment relationship, this new indicator has been included for 2023.

With the labor reform, the scope of application of discontinuous permanent contracts has been substantially expanded, so that it can now be used to carry out jobs of a seasonal nature or linked to seasonal productive activities, or for jobs that have certain execution periods; also for the provision of services within the framework of foreseeable commercial or administrative contracts and that are part of the ordinary activity of the company; and they can be used by temporary employment agencies to cover contracts linked to the temporary needs of user companies.

An alternative

With all this, discontinuous fixed contracts have tripled and are presented as an alternative to temporary ones. As soon as the company hires a permanent discontinuous worker, he or she becomes part of the company’s workforce, with the same rights as an indefinite worker, although with the particularities of his or her discontinuous activity. The company registers the worker with Social Security while he/she develops his/her benefit with the same contributions as an indefinite person; and when the work period ends, they are discharged and can apply for unemployment benefits if they meet the requirements.

Likewise, undue salary contributions, false self-employed workers, false cooperative members and false interns (companies hire workers under these figures of self-employed or intern to save social contributions) will continue to be under the microscope of the inspection.

Control will be reinforced in terms of non-payment of salaries, total or partial, as well as their delay, with special attention to the Minimum Interprofessional Salary; and in terms of working time, both in cases of irregular overtime and part-time work that masks longer working hours. Specifically, the Ministry of Labor plans to carry out 27,000 actions on the control of working time next year.

Unemployment benefits

On the other hand, Yolanda Díaz’s department plans to carry out a million and a half checks to verify if the requirements for unemployment benefits are met and that half a million claims for reimbursement of undue income are produced. A figure that barely exceeds a third of the claims that will be carried out this year, but that the ministry justifies in that it is only about objectives for the budgets. In fact, every year the execution far exceeds the forecasts, so the objective set is certainly very conservative.

Along with control, the Ministry of Labor will also focus on detecting training needs for the retraining of the labor market, including digital skills and for the ecological transition, and to anticipate changes and respond to the demand that may arise. produce.

In this context, the Government expects that by the end of 2025 at least 825,000 people will have completed training programs in order to acquire skills for digital, ecological and productive transformation. Along the way, 150,000 people will have been discouraged or discharged, since they calculate that there will be 975,000 enrolled in these training actions.

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