Part-time contracts increase in fight to provide jobs to young Spanish workers

Because the unemployment rate for young Spanish workers is at 48.7% and this segment of the country's workforce is decamping in droves, it is critical to look at others for ideas about how to escape our labor struggles and increase their ability to compete with other labor markets.

Minister of Labor Fátima Báñez has proposed several measures. One measure is to provide stable part-time contracts for young workers, a proposal that she mentioned yesterday in her first session at the head of Congress. She also guaranteed that labor reforms would be "complete, balanced and effective."

But what does she mean by "balanced?" One of the most controversial issues is severance packages for layoffs. First, the government is considering a measure that generalizes the 33-day severance package and fully clarifies firing clauses related to 20-day severance packages. In this way, struggling companies can resort to the 20-day package without having to jump through a series of legal hoops.

Nonetheless, for experts this labor reform measure is not enough. For IESE professor José Ramón Pin, severance packages granted for unjustified layoffs would need to equal the European average of 22 days, while those for justified layoffs will have to shrink farther still. For that to happen, he is considering achieving some degree of balance provided that "it does not lower severance packages for workers, but does dole out what is needed in a fair way."