The education sector, the usual driver of employment in September, started the course with 1,082,670 members, which represents 145,032 fewer than those released on average in June, reflection of a weaker recovery after the usual summer layoffs, a practice against which experts and unions warn.
The job market created 8,805 jobs on average during the month of Septemberthanks to the promotion of education, where there were 49,858 more employees than in August, where 72,338 jobs were lost, adding to the 122,551 destroyed in July. Comparing this with the average data for June, the difference is 145,032 affiliates, a deficit that the September hirings have not finished filling while waiting to see what will happen in October with the start of more extracurricular activities and of auxiliary services to the educational and filling sector. vacant positions.
This trend of withdrawals from Social Security affiliation in July and August and registrations in September, or what is called “vacation layoffs”, is a common behavior in the sector of education and related activities, linked at the pace of studies. Thus, in 2023, education 170,000 jobs lost between July and Augustwhich they completely recovered between September (85,817) and October (191,154).
The Secretary of State for Social Security, Borja Suárez, explained this week that forecasts point to a more intense increase than usual in education next October, because employment in the sector began in September. “limping” for “calendar” reasons. This year, the school year started in many communities around September 9 and 10, while in previous years it was around the 6th.
Temporary problem in Administrations
Behind this behavior of employment in education lies, on the one hand, the situation of temporary employment in public administrations, in which it is common for temporary teaching staff to leave in July and return in September, but also certain hiring frauds in the private sector. education, according to the unions. Some 60,000 public sector teachers are in an interim situation and are unable to contribute the required months (around five and a half months on average in Spain) to reach the month of June with the right to remain registered and benefit from vacation leave. ‘summer.
“It’s not acceptable to have this group in this situation”The president of the national educational sector of the Central Independent Trade Union and Civil Servants (CSIF), Mario Gutiérrez, criticizes the EFE, which also demands more transparency from all administrations to know how many professionals are in temporary situations.
Added to this situation are the difficulties in finding specialty teachers and additional delays which can lead to reinforcements in general budgets, which has led public schools this year to reopen classrooms with a deficit of 45,778 teachers and a interim of 21.06%.
Along the same lines, the head of educational policy for the STEs-i teachers’ union, Fernando Villalba, assures that in public education, particularly at ESO, a “great resignation” is underway. This is due to difficulties in finding teachers who teach some optional subjects, but not core subjects such as mathematics, physics and chemistry or English, due to the poor working conditions on offer.
Fraud involving the use of discontinuous landline telephones
Leave during holidays is also influenced by the use in private and subsidized education of the permanent discontinuous figure for the recruitment of teaching staff. And that, “despite the Supreme Court ruling of March 2023 which prohibits it”explains to EFE the deputy spokesperson for the CCOO Union Action and Employment Secretariat, Raúl Olmos, who assures that it is a “fraud of the law”.
In addition, “non-educational activity must be taken into account”explains Olmos, since complementary or extracurricular activities, school canteens, sports clubs or cultural centers, also carry out discontinuous permanent hiring, which during non-call periods count as withdrawals from Social Security. The use of the discontinuous permanent contract for hiring in a non-teaching activity is correct, affirms Olmos, while warning that many employers fraudulently use the temporary contract.
