Treball introduced reforms aimed at bringing the government, employers, and unions back to the negotiation table to redefine the basis of the most recent decision. The labor reform, accepted by all parties, has drawn a response from the Catalan employers’ association, which has long opposed the standard supported by the confederation CEOE. In a Monday briefing, the association published a report arguing that the rule crafted by the labor ministry, led by Yolanda Díaz, amounts to a compensation-centered measure that does little to improve long-term job stability and merely reflects volatility without delivering real gains for workers.
“The goal is to pursue a consensual reformulation of recruitment,” stated the Director of Labor at Foment del Treball, Javier Ibars, during a press conference. He noted that the newly outlined contract rules in the regulation place heavy burdens on companies, raise operating costs, and do not produce additional benefits beyond the intended compensation framework.
Two years after the reform’s ratification, the state-led overhaul—conducted with the participation of CEOE and unions CCOO and UGT—continues to reshape the Spanish labor market. The reform has contributed to a notable decline in temporary employment within the private sector. Data shows the share of temporary work dropped from 26.4% in 2019 to 14.2% in recent years, as companies increasingly sign indefinite contracts across full-time, part-time, and non-permanent roles.
“Statistical artificiality”
Catalan business leaders describe the observed contraction in temporary work as a statistical artifact that does not translate into meaningful changes for workers’ daily lives. The year 2019 saw 1.3 million full-time indefinite contracts signed, while 2022—the reform’s first full year—recorded 2.9 million full-time indefinite contracts. This higher figure includes many long-term, permanent arrangements within the statistics, such as 1.7 million permanent part-time contracts and 2.3 million permanent contracts that ended, which complicate straightforward comparisons.
Josep Sánchez Llibre, who heads the Catalan business association, based much of his remarks on a report from Randstad, a temporary employment firm. The critique centers on proposals from Yolanda Díaz, including reducing the workweek or imposing permanent taxes on banks and energy companies, arguing that such measures have limited practical impact on employment stability and business costs. Critics also contend the reform is exploited to push for shorter-term contracts even when the work is ongoing, challenging the assumption that indefinite contracts necessarily provide greater security for workers.
According to Randstad, the pattern shows that many long-term contracts function like fixed-term deals in practice. Even when labeled indefinite, employers often treat them as time-bound obligations that require additional compensation to workers. Randstad reports that seven out of ten contracts signed recently last no longer than a year, compared with four out of ten before the reform—a shift that raises questions about how “indefinite” is defined in real terms.
A second point raised by Randstad concerns trial-period terminations. While trial periods are meant to assess fit, they represent a small share of total contracts but have grown significantly in impact. Terminations during the trial period do not require compensation, and in many cases are justified by performance concerns. In August, for instance, 608,769 indefinite contracts were active, yet 56,510 were terminated for not exceeding the trial period, a 9.2 percent termination rate. By way of comparison, August 2021 showed far fewer terminations relative to a larger pool of new indefinite contracts, illustrating the evolving dynamics of hiring and retention since the reform took effect.