Signing a permanent contract is no longer a guarantee of job stability. Since the labor reform came into force in 2022, seven out of every 10 permanent contracts signed in Catalonia have a duration of less than one year. It is almost double the percentage that occurred in the labor reform, according to a Foment study.
The employers' association believes that the data show that with the labor reform "the labor market has not been transformed" but rather that "there has only been an attempt to cover up temporality under this issue of statistical artifices." The report - prepared with data collected by the temporary employment company (ETT) Randstad - explains that more than 106,000 employees in Catalonia signed two or more contracts each month in the last year. The figure is 20 times higher than what occurred before the labor reform came into force in 2022.
The director of the Department of Labor Relations of Foment, Javier Ibars, denies that this practice hides a fraud of law since - he has assured - that companies have no alternative. Specifically in relation to fixed-term jobs, Ibars has reflected that "if you don't give companies alternatives, they have to do it through an indefinite contract." Foment has warned that since the legislative change came into force, the increase in permanent contracts where the worker does not exceed the trial period has multiplied by 11.
The report also details that if employees who do not work but do not appear as unemployed are taken into account, the number of unemployed remains stable. "Hiring in Catalonia has experienced a reduction of 14% between April and September 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, which raises questions about the success of the 2022 Labor Reform in job stability and the transformation of the labor market," it reads. The report.
