According to data from the Active Population Survey (EPA), the rate has gone from 26.9% in 2018 to 26.1% at the end of 2019, the first drop in annual Email List comparison since 2012, when it stood at 22. 8% after having reduced by more than ten points during the crisis years.
In detail, the evolution in 2019 is different between men and women: while among them it has fallen 1.3 points - from 26.2% at the end of 2018 to 24.9% -, for them it has barely fallen two tenths at a time. go from 27.6% to 27.4%.
The evolution also differs between the private sector, where it has fallen from 27% to 25.7%, and the public sector, where it has increased more than one point from 26.3% to 27.8%.
In absolute figures, some 4.3 million workers had a temporary contract at the end of 2019 compared to the 12.4 million who had a permanent contract.
During the year, the number of employees with permanent employment increased by 414,200 people, while temporary employment decreased by 21,600.
Spain is the EU country with the highest rate of temporary employees, almost double the European average, which remains at 14.2%.
Behind these figures, which continue to place Spain as the EU country with the highest rate of temporary employees - almost double the European average, which remains at 14.2% -, there are different factors.
In the case of the private sector, behavior can signal a turning point in the labor market before a change in cycle, Funcas senior economist María Jesús Fernández told Efe.
In the last year, Fernández explains, temporary hiring has been reduced and permanent employment has accelerated, something that also happened before the start of the previous crisis, Fernández recalls.
"We do not expect another crisis but we do expect another stage ," emphasizes the Funcas economist, who also recalls that in this expansive phase, temporary employment has remained at more moderate levels than in the previous one due, in part, to the reduction in the cost of dismissal. that the labor reform entailed.
According to EPA data at the end of each year, the total temporary employment rate reached a high in 2005 at 33.8% and began to decrease with the beginning of the crisis - when the bulk of the employment destroyed was temporary - for fall to 22.8% in 2012.
From there it rose again, although without exceeding the 26% barrier, to mark its first decline in the last year.
But why is it reduced at those points prior to the cycle change?
María Jesús Fernández points to two hypotheses. On the one hand, companies that begin to notice the slowdown in business or have worse prospects first destroy temporary employment.
On the other hand, those that continue with good business rates are committed to consolidating and converting certain profiles that are scarce in the market into permanent ones.
In the public sector, the situation is different since it is due to the greater temporary hiring within the framework of the economic recovery and the delay suffered by some of the employment stabilization processes agreed in 2017 to, precisely, cut the employment rate. temporality and leave it at 8%.
The different Public Administrations, explain from UGT, have circumvented the limits of the replacement rate (which prevents all retirements from being covered) by generating long-term temporary employment "degenerating into abusive and fraudulent use of it."
From the Ministry of Labor, the Secretary of State for Employment and Social Economy, Joaquín Pérez Rey, assessed this week the "slight tendency towards containment" of the temporary employment rate that links, in part, to the reinforcement of the Inspection plans. of Labor to surface situations of irregular use of temporary hiring.