Spain's Labour Market Reforms: The Road to Employment Or to Unemployment?

Abstract

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On the Efficiency of Labor Market Reforms: How to Solve the Spanish Puzzle?

“…While time lags are characteristic for structural reforms, several observations rise doubts regarding a delayed impact of the RDL. First, while the share of temporary employment in % of total employment decreases (IMF, 2015), it increases in newly issued contracts until the end of 2014 (Horwitz and Myant, 2015). The former observation is consistent with the one made by the OECD (2013) which reports a significant increase in the monthly probability of individual transition from unemployment to permanent employment by 14 % already in March 2013, i.e.…”

“…The author states that those job contracts, which prevailed during the crisis, had been adjusted with respect to a change in the working time agreement. This is confirmed by Horwitz and Myant (2015) who show that the average number of hours worked per full-time employee increases rather than decreases as being expected based on the RDL. This development in the number of temporary contracts is explained by structural issues.…”

“…Furthermore, agreements on the business level become more important then global regulations, while firm are now allowed to resign from the collective bargaining process. With respect to the latter, the validity of these agreements is limited to one year after the expiry date (Horwitz and Myant, 2015). Henceforth we just mention the term RDL (Royal Decree Law) as acronym for both reforms in 2010 and 2012 if not stated otherwise.…”

La flexibilité, une arme contre le chômage? Analyse empirique du marché du travail espagnol

“…Censées remédier aux faiblesses structurelles de l'économie espagnole et traiter une situation conjoncturelle marquée par un chômage élevé, elles ont été imposées sans concertation, par des gouvernements qui n'ont pas hésité à rompre le dialogue social. Elles s'inscrivaient plus largement dans la lignée de toute une série de réformes mises en oeuvre depuis plusieurs décennies (Molina et Miguélez, 2013;Horwitz et Myant, 2015;Muñoz de Bustillo et Esteve, 2017).…”

¿Conduce la flexibilización a menor desempleo? Un análisis empírico del mercado laboral español

“…Las dos más importantes fueron las de los años 2010 y 2012, 1 que introdujeron profundos cambios en la normativa laboral con el propósito declarado de revertir las debilidades estructurales de la economía española y resolver la situación coyuntural de alto desempleo. Ambas fueron impuestas de forma unilateral por gobiernos que asumieron la ruptura del diálogo social y se hallan en continuidad con el resto de reformas introducidas en las últimas décadas (Molina y Miguélez, 2013;Horwitz y Myant, 2015; Muñoz de Bustillo y Esteve, 2017).…”