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For the first time, it will subject all contracts to scrutiny using a new big data analysis tool
The labor inspectorate plans to convert 100,000 temporary contracts into permanent contracts next year thanks to its checks on their legality. After the labor reform approved in December 2021, the employment or service contract disappears, the contracts are presumed to be concluded for an indefinite period, and there is only one fixed-term contract, which can be concluded due to the circumstances of production or by substitution of the worker, specifying precisely the cause which authorizes them (productive or substitution) and their relation to the planned duration.
The control of this type of contract will result in these one hundred thousand new permanent ones, which represents an increase of 11.1% compared to the execution planned for this year of converting 90,000 temporary jobs into permanent jobs after investigating nearly half a million contracts. These figures suggest that one in five temporary agreements do not comply with the law.
However, next year, Labor plans to verify all employment contracts with a new tool, the HLF (Fraud Fighting Tool), which will make it possible, through the massive analysis of databases, to investigate all the world of contracts.
The inspection activity of the Ministry of Labor will be reoriented to deal, according to the executive, with “the weakening of working conditions produced in previous years, recover labor rights and improve the quality of employment and working conditions”.
The inspection will focus on the abuse of temporary contracts, especially among young workers, in the fraudulent use of part-time contracts and in the fraudulent use of discontinuous open-ended contracts. Given the relevance acquired by this type of employment relationship, this new indicator has been integrated for 2023.
With the labor reform, the scope of discontinuous open-ended contracts has been considerably widened, so that it can now be used to perform jobs of a seasonal nature or related to seasonal productive activities, or for jobs which have certain execution periods; also for the provision of services within the framework of foreseeable commercial or administrative contracts and forming part of the ordinary activity of the company; and they can be used by temporary employment agencies to cover contracts related to the temporary needs of user companies.
An alternative
With all this, discontinuous fixed contracts have tripled and are presenting themselves as an alternative to temporary contracts. As soon as the company hires a permanent discontinuous worker, he integrates the workforce of the company, with the same rights as an indeterminate worker, but with the particularities of his discontinuous activity. The company registers the worker with Social Security while he develops his benefit with the same contributions as a permanent worker; and at the end of the work period, they are fired and can apply for unemployment benefits if they meet the conditions.
Likewise, undue employee contributions, false self-employed, false cooperators and false trainees (companies hire workers under these self-employed or trainee figures to save social security contributions) will continue to be under the magnifying glass of the inspection.
Control will be reinforced in terms of non-payment of wages, total or partial, as well as their delay, with particular attention to the Interprofessional Minimum Wage; and in terms of working time, both in the case of irregular overtime and part-time work which masks longer working hours. Concretely, the Ministry of Labor plans to carry out 27,000 actions on the control of working time next year.
Unemployment benefits
On the other hand, the department of Yolanda Díaz plans to carry out one and a half million checks to verify whether the conditions for unemployment compensation are met and that half a million claims for reimbursement of undue income are produced. A figure that barely exceeds a third of the claims that will be made this year, but that the ministry justifies in that it is only a question of objectives for the budgets. In fact, each year the execution far exceeds the forecast, so the target set is certainly very conservative.
At the same time as monitoring, the Ministry of Labor will also endeavor to detect training needs for the reconversion of the labor market, including digital skills and for the ecological transition, and to anticipate changes and respond to the demand that could arise. produce.
In this context, the Government expects that by the end of 2025, at least 825,000 people will have completed training programs to acquire skills for digital, ecological and productive transformation. Along the way, 150,000 people will have been discouraged or dismissed, since they calculate that there will be 975,000 registered for these training actions.
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