2024-03-09 23:39:08
Sunday, March 10, 2024, 00:39
Comment
Copy link
WhatsApp
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
Telegram
The Government jealously guards the data on how many permanent permanent workers there are in Spain and, above all, how many are not active at the moment and, therefore, despite having a valid contract, they do not work and are not paid. Because these people are not counted in the registered unemployment data published each month by the Ministry of Labor, although some may be receiving a benefit.
This has always been the case – as the Ministry led by Yolanda Díaz repeats as a mantra in its defense – but the rules of the game have changed, a lot, and the contract that was previously used most for seasonal jobs, the temporary , is now so restricted as a result of the labor reform, that it has plummeted and, in its place, this figure of the discontinuous permanent position that until now was only residual has emerged with unusual force. But the key is that those hundreds of thousands of temporary workers did go on the unemployment list when they finished their activity and the discontinuous permanent workers did not. How many? Where are they?
Without official data it is not possible to give precise information on how many intermittent workers there are currently in Spain, but several variables can be analyzed that allow us to get an idea of the important role that they have been gaining in the Spanish labor market in these two years. .
As of today, there are almost 820,000 average affiliates registered under this discontinuous fixed-line modality, with data from the Ministry of Social Security at the end of February. In the same month of 2022, just before the new hiring modalities brought about by the labor reform came into force, they did not reach 400,000. This means that in these two years they have more than doubled with the addition of 420,000 new intermittent contributors.
Five million contracts have needed to be signed to create 420,000 new discontinuous jobs
Effective unemployment exceeds 3.5 million if these inactive workers are added to the 2.7 million
The surprising thing is that, to create these 420,000 jobs, almost five million discontinuous permanent contracts have had to be signed. How can there be such a large gap when it is also a fixed contract and is therefore assumed to be stable?
There are three possible answers to explain it, according to Valentín Bote, director of Randstad Research. One is that employers have decided to end many of these discontinuous fixed contracts despite having been able to leave them in a period of inactivity. Another option that may occur is for the same worker to have several contracts signed with different companies, something that is perfectly possible, as happens, for example, with seasonal workers in the fields who work to harvest olives, strawberries, and peppers. …, and have several active contracts. And the third possibility is that these are people who are not working despite having a valid contract because they are inactive.
When a worker is inactive, they have two options: register as a job seeker in the SEPE, or not do so, because there is no obligation. Normally, those who have the right to collect benefits are registered, while those who have not contributed enough or know that they will be called again soon, do not do so, because it involves a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy. “There may be many more inactive than the SEPE says,” warns Bote.
The inactive, at maximums
Currently there are 778,000 inactive discontinuous permanent workers registered in the SEPE, a historical maximum, with the latest data available, for the month of January. They are those who are classified as job seekers with an employment relationship, although not all of them, the vast majority are discontinued without employment, although this also includes workers in ERTE and other groups, but they are a very small, residual number.
This group of inactive discontinuous permanent employees has also doubled with the entry into force of the labor reform and, in fact, reached historical highs, except for the period of the pandemic, when they grew to numbers never seen before with the hundreds of thousands of workers in ERTE. . And if you analyze the evolution, you can see perfectly how they decrease in the good months of job creation, in the high season, and rise during the low season.
The vast majority of these intermittent workers who were unemployed in February are concentrated in the hospitality industry; What’s more, a quarter belong to this sector and are waiting for calls from hotels, restaurants or bars now that the high season begins soon.
But farm workers also form a very large group: practically 130,000 are currently unemployed; It is the group that has skyrocketed the most, since it has almost quadrupled in just two years, according to the analyst specialized in the labor market Alejandro Costanzo. There are also more than 105,000 those dedicated to administrative activities.
If this group of nearly 800,000 people is added to the more than 2.7 million registered unemployed, effective unemployment rises above 3.5 million, a level that has been maintained in the last year. Furthermore, if the reduction in registered unemployment is compared with that in effective unemployment, the former has been cut by 11% since the entry into force of the labor reform, while effective unemployment has only dropped by 2%, one fifth.
Comment Report a bug
#enigma #discontinuous #fixed #lines