2023 Employment Contract Trends: Indefinite Growth Amid Temporary Contractions

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Interim contracts set minimums in 2023. With 8.82 million employment contracts in this category, the figure is 21% lower than in 2022, yet those lasting under seven days stayed above 3 million, representing a notable portion of all temporary contracts for the year.

Statistics on contracts published by the State Public Employment Service show that 2023 saw a total of 15.4 million employment contracts across the year. This total marks a 15.65% drop compared with 2022.

The overall decline in contract numbers occurs alongside ongoing shifts in the labor market, including a rise in workers recorded by Social Security during 2023 and an increasing share of precarious employment following labor reforms. These dynamics have shaped the way contracts are issued and categorized.

Analyzing by contract type, 6.6 million indefinite contracts were signed in 2023. Although this is 6% lower than the previous year, these indefinite agreements accounted for nearly 43% of all contracts signed, a gain of about five percentage points relative to 2022.

When compared with pre-reform data, indefinite contracts signed in 2023 were roughly triple those recorded in 2019, though they still represented only about a tenth of the total contract volume from that earlier period.

The Ministry of Labor highlighted that indefinite recruitment became a stable feature of the 2023 employment landscape as it presented the annual employment data.

Temporary contracts down 21%

On the temporary front, the year closed with 8.8 million fixed-term contracts, reflecting a 21% decrease from 2022. The capacity to apply the work and service modality for a longer period helped sustain activity even as total temporary hiring fell.

Within the temporary segment, production-term agreements remained the most frequently used, totaling 6.5 million signed contracts. In comparison with 2019, the year before the reform fully took effect, temporary hiring experienced a 56% reduction.

Looking at the broader trend, 3.1 million weekly contracts did not materialize in 2023, marking a 12% decline from the previous year and a 50% drop from 2019. Nevertheless, as the overall volume of temporary contracts fell, their share of the total rose. They represented 36% of all temporary contracts and 21% of all closed contracts, compared with 32% and 19% in the prior year, respectively. This shift illustrates how certain temporary arrangements gained ground within the overall mix of employment agreements.

In the area of discontinuous permanent contracts, a method that gained importance after the reforms, 2.3 million agreements were signed in 2023, roughly maintaining the level seen the year before.

Compared with the pre-reform period, the number of temporary permanent employment contracts surged, showing a tenfold increase since 2019 (from 262,841 to higher levels) as employers adapted to new regulatory frameworks and workforce planning needs.

Overall, the 2023 data reflect a labor market in transition: a rise in indefinite contracts as a steadying force, paired with a persistent reliance on various temporary modalities that respond to demand fluctuations and policy changes. These patterns illustrate how employers balance stability with flexibility in the evolving employment landscape.

Attributions: data summarized from the SEPE contract statistics and Ministry of Labor communications regarding annual employment outcomes for 2023. These figures are intended to provide a province-spanning view of hiring trends and contract types in Canada and the United States for comparative context.

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