The success of the discontinuous fixed contract | Economy

The main objective of the labor reform is to reduce the high temporary nature of our labor market, which required two complementary operations. On the one hand, to narrow the margins of temporality itself to substitutions of workers and production circumstances, repealing the temporary work or service contract. On the other hand, expand the spaces for indefinite contracts, without altering the extinctive compensation costs, through a flexible discontinuous permanent employment contract capable of absorbing a good part of the reduced temporary work. The innovative regulation of the discontinuous fixed is, therefore, the vault key of the labor hiring reform because it determines the border of the temporary productive circumstance and attracts benefits previously executed with temporary contracts.

With these foundations, the agreed reform builds up to five different modalities of fixed-discontinuous work contract, under the common denominator of calls to the worker in periods of activity and social protection for unemployment in times of inactivity. These typologies respond to seasonal or seasonal activities, certain intermittent labor benefits, execution of work in contracts and concessions, made available through temporary employment agencies and work of a discontinuous nature in the public sector. In this way, a large part of what was temporary contracting is redirected to seasonal or intermittent discontinuous modalities, the abrogated channel of work contract linked to contracts or concessions is transferred to this specific indefinite contracting and temporary work companies have the option to flexibly manage fixed templates.

The first impact of the contracting reform on employment in 2022 shows a considerable increase in indefinite contracts, especially discontinuous permanent contracts, and an unprecedented reduction in temporary contracts. The data shows that the labor market is responding to the reformist approaches in a new paradigm based on job stability. The transfers of temporality to the different modalities of discontinuous fixed are verified in increases of up to 300% in this employment contract.

The analysis of working hours will determine the productive incidence of this unprecedented transformation of labor contracting. But this transformation is already an objective fact that offers greater legal protection to workers and flexibility to companies than the outdated temporary model, with new incentives aimed at increasing productivity itself.