The possibility for temporary employment agencies to carry out permanent discontinuous contracts has been one of the most controversial novelties introduced by the labor reform, and two years after the entry into force of the standard, the data confirm the forecasts of many analysts. 46% of the provision contracts (CPD) carried out in the first six months of the year were carried out under this modality, a total of 896,422, 34% more than in the same period of 2023. This allows ETTs to increase their volume of activity over the last year.
Provision contracts are those concluded between a temporary employment agency and a “user company” (i.e. its client) for the transfer of the worker, which is the pillar of the business of these companies. As of June, they had accumulated a total of 1.98 million signatures, 12.1% more than a year ago. As statistics published by the Ministry of Labour indicate, each CPD is equivalent to one call, the figure is therefore higher than the number of workers transferredwhich added up to 1.1 million, or 6% more than in 2023. However, these data on transfers of natural persons are considered an approximation and, in addition, It is not broken down by type of employment contract, as is the case for the CPD.
The labor reform agreed by the government, employers and unions at the end of 2021 restricted the signing of temporary contracts, directly targeting the waterline of the activity of these companies. The first forecasts predicted a collapse due to the elimination of employment and service contracts (which represented 37% of the CPD) and the limitations of temporary contracts due to production circumstances (CPDs in this category have been reduced by 23% between 2021 and 2023).
But the rule itself introduced a “float” to which these companies can cling: the possibility of hiring permanent, intermittent employees to make them available to their customers. This formula was accepted as a “lesser evil” by the unions, while warning that it would generate volatility and precariousness in these contracts, in principle of indefinite duration and linked to seasonal and recurring activities under very specific conditions.
In addition, this has reduced the cost of employment for these companies, since permanent discontinuous employees who become inactive until the new call do not receive a contract expiration allowance (12 days per year worked). that they perceive the storms.
What the data says
What the statistics published by the Ministry of Labour reveal is that there was a drop in the activity of temporary employment agencies (measured in the number of temporary employment contracts) of 10.6% between 2021 and 2023, which translated into a loss of 5% of registered temporary employment agencies (which decreased from 247 to 232). But the trend is starting to reverse. In the first six months of the year, temporary employment contracts increased by 12.1% compared to the same period in 2023. And the key to this lies in discontinuous permanent employment contracts, whose development has more than compensated for the disappearance of temporary work and service workers and mitigated the impact of the retreat of other storms.
The phenomenon has been occurring continuously since March 2022, when the three-month “vacatio legis” granted by the reform ended so that companies, including temporary employment agencies, could adapt to the liquidation of employment and service contracts and will consider discontinuous fixes as an alternative.
Thus, in June, 165,648 contracts were registered for the provision of permanent discontinuous workers, or 46% of the total. In the total of the first 6 months, the figure reached 896,422, or 45.3% and 34% more than in the first quarter of the previous year. In the same interval, temporary work and service contracts increased by only 0.4% and represent 48% of the total, compared to 62% before the labor reform.
Thus, temporary employment agencies that have opted for these contracts have better modulated the “blow” of the labor reform. Even if this arouses criticism that experts like those of the Fedea agree with from the unions, who accuse the ETTs of being at the origin of the precariousness of permanent discontinuous positions since the implementation of the labor reform. This has led Work to strengthen control over ETTs and over an alleged “irregular” use of discontinuous fixed lines, including an inspection campaign.
Six missions per contract
The sector defends itself by ensuring that relatively few discontinuous fixed-term contracts are signed, barely 15% of the total contracts registered under this modality by the SEPE in 2023. So far, in 2024, this percentage has been reduced to 11.8%, according to the Labor Office statistics, which also reveal that only 13.4% of the contracts signed by ETTs are permanent, discontinuous, while 80.8% are temporary due to production circumstances.
The discrepancy with the CPD data is explained by the fact that, as we pointed out at the beginning of this article, these are the different calls that contract workers receive to be made available to their clients. In this sense, in the first six months of the year, ETTs registered 1.1 million contracts in public employment services, compared to 1.98 million CPDs. This gives a ratio of 1.78, although this fluctuates considerably depending on the type.
Temporary contracts due to production circumstances record a ratio of 0.9 (the majority of those formalized generate a single CPD) but among permanent discontinuous contracts it climbs to 5.8. Something that agrees with the fact that 13.4% of the contracts signed by ETT add up to 46% of your CPD.
But the analysis becomes even more complicated if we take into account that the number of contracts notified by the ETTs is not equivalent to the number of workers affected. According to the calculations of the Labor Party, the ETTs hired only 428,594 people in the first six months of the year, which is equivalent to 4.6 for each CPD. Although in this case the information is not broken down by type of contract either, it is known that the ratio is four tenths higher than that recorded in mid-2023 (4.2), even if last year it closed with a ratio of 5.2, exactly the same as in 2021.
In the absence of further information on the situation of permanent discontinuous contracts hired by ETTs, the data suggest that they would explain that, despite the reduction in temporary contracts themselves, the volatility of positions awarded by ETTs remains at levels similar to those before the hiring reform, without the labour controls having borne fruit for the moment.
