labour reform

Spanish economy 16th January 2023

Balearics: more people collecting unemployment benefits (59,461) than registered unemployed (35,851). Wonders of the labour reform

One autonomous community, the Balearic Islands, is already reflecting the mismatch between the numbers of registered unemployed and benefit recipients that the digital newspaper Theobjective.com has been reporting. According to data from the Public Employment Services (SEPE) for December 2022, analysed by the Studies Office of the Workers’ Trade Union (USO), in December in the Balearic Islands there were 59,461 benefit recipients while 35,851 people were registered as unemployed. According…

Spanish economy 28th November 2022

Effects of the labour reform: 62% of permanent contracts signed up to October did not create real jobs

In the first ten months of 2022, the enrolment of workers with permanent contracts totalled 2.6 million people. For this, 5.95 million contracts had to be signed, which means that almost 3.7 million of them, 62%, ‘vanished’ without being translated into new stable employment. This gap, moreover, is growing intensely: it has widened by half a million in the last month alone. The newspaper El Economista explains that although this…

Spanish economy 4th February 2022

Forms And Reforms

A.J.A. | An Argentine friend of mine once asked me why I thought his country was not coming back from the precipice. “To put it simply, Alfredo, if a country’s greatest pride is Maradona’s “hand of God” against England…. It’s fucked.” He nodded, silently. There was little to discuss. Yesterday Spain had its own “hand of God”, one of those images for the gallery destined to mark an era. To…

Spanish economy 27th December 2021

“Repeal” of Spanish Labor Reforms Is Limited

Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | Spanish employers and trade unions have done a deal with Pedro Sánchez’ socialist government to overturn several labor reforms of his conservative predecessor, Mariano Rajoy. I argued against repeal. Rajoy’s liberalizations helped bring down unemployment, from a peak of 26 percent to 14 percent before the pandemic, and encouraged business growth. They allowed companies to opt out of collective bargaining agreements and expanded trial periods….

Spanish economy 8th November 2021

Repeal of Spanish Labor Reform Is Unwise

Nick Ottens (Atlantic Sentinel) | Spain’s ruling left-wing parties have agreed to reverse the labor market liberalizations of the previous conservative government, which made it easier for firms to hire and fire workers. The decision is hard to justify even by the standards set by proponents of repeal. The reforms did not create more precarious jobs, they did not cause higher structural unemployment and they barely made a dent in…

Spanish economy 3rd November 2021

Repeal, Reform, Renew… Empty Words

Fernando González Urbaneja | The government has agreed on the labour counter-reform Is this news? The news was the absence of agreement, i.e. the renunciation of the agreement that made the coalition possible. The fact that the agreement is still in force is nothing new, even if a liturgy of tension is staged between the vice-presidents, resolved by the decisive decision of the boss, the resistant one. Apart from the…

Relevant News Item 25th October 2021

Repeal Of Labour Reform, Mere Appearances

Fernando González Urbaneja | Pedro Sánchez has promised in some ad hoc forums to repeal the labour reform, although in other forums he has argued the opposite in order to point to a revision of the Workers’ Statute taking into account the new labour frameworks of the 21st century.

Spanish Politics 30th May 2021

The OECD Makes A Full Amendment To The Approaches Of The Spanish Ministry Of Labour

The Secretary General of the OECD, Ángel Gurría, yesterday presented the “Economic Survey of Spain 2021” together with the Vice-President for Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño. The document is an amendment to the labour policy proposed by the Spanish government in its entirety. It warns of the high impact of the coronavirus crisis on the Spanish economy and rejects a tax hike until the economic recovery is consolidated. It also asks…

Spanish Politics 20th May 2021

Nadia And Yolanda, At The Boss’ Right And Left Hand

Fernando González Urbaneja | The second (Nadia Calviño) and third (Yolanda Díaz) vice-presidents of the Spanish government have a hard time putting up with each other; they hide it, but sometimes they betray each other. A gesture, a comment, a confidence… and the dissimulation vanishes. It happened yesterday in Parliament, over the “reversal of the labour reform” but it is well known to the usual interlocutors of the two vice-presidents….

Spanish economy 13th May 2021

The Bank of Spain Proposes Reducing The Cost Of Dismissal And Adopting The Austrian Model

According to the Governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, NGEU funds may be used to facilitate the approval of structural reforms The setting up of a capitalisation fund for each employee to finance part of their severance pay in the event of dismissal is an example of a reform that is desirable for the economy as a whole, but costly for certain agents in the short run.

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