Labor reforms, which will turn two years old tomorrow, are facing their first challenge: showing that they can create jobs when the economy is growing at a snail's pace. So far they have not met this objective, because in the past two years two million Spaniards have lost their jobs.
The reforms gave companies more flexibility, and as a result they did cut staff. But new negotiation techniques were improved in an effort to slow down the layoffs. This intangible was critical even though it is impossible to quantify. Flexibility should be used now to help companies hire quickly and send Spain on a road to recovery. But did labor reforms fixed rampant redundancy in the Spanish labor market? If not, then we need to find a way to do that and change the laws or write new ones if that is what it takes.
