A contract that is neither for young people nor serves to train and find a job

A contract that is neither for young people nor serves to train and find a job

CC OO denounces the misuse of the contract for training and learning, as well as its low incidence but high cost

  The use made in Spain of the contract for the training of young people is practically residual - despite the fact that the country still has a youth unemployment rate of over 30% - and barely represents 0.2% of the total contracts signed. Thus, last year of the more than 22.2 million registered contracts, only 52,800 were made with this modality. This means that they have plummeted 70% since the peak reached in 2015, when 175,000 contracts were signed, and this despite the boost that has been in the last two years, with an increase of 9% in 2018. If compared with the existing level before the crisis, have now been reduced by half compared to 2007.

  However, despite having a negligible impact on the Spanish labor market, the cost to the public coffers is high and amounts to more than 2,144 million euros for the period 2013-2018, reaching almost 3,000 million if training it is done in face-to-face and non-telematic mode, according to CC OO estimates in a report published today.

The union led by Unai Sordo also complains that the purpose for which it was created - which is none other than to train young people who are not qualified to get a job - has been "distorted" and is increasingly moving away from being " a true bet for the employability and the employment of the youngest without qualification, turning it into an instrument of precarization and labor instability ».

Mostly with more than 25 years
In the first place, CC OO puts on the table the data that corroborate that the recipient of this type of contract, the youngest ones, are no longer so and there has been a progressive aging of its beneficiaries. Thus, although in its original design were aimed at those under 25 years, currently 54% of people hired exceeds that age, more after in 2012 it was approved raise from 25 to 29 years the maximum age to sign these contracts, conditioned to the fact that the unemployment rate was above 15%, a requirement that has disappeared and, therefore, does not admit people over 25 years of age. In this way, the combined effect of youth unemployment and incentivized precarization of the contract meant that, between 2007 and 2018, the percentage of people under 19 went from 71% to 13%. And it is more:

CC OO also considers that the nature of the contract has been "altered" in terms of qualification, since the number of people hired with higher professional training or university studies has doubled, despite the fact that this group is excluded. Thus, in 2018, 11% of these contracts were made to people with professional training or undergraduate studies, supposedly because they lacked qualifications related to said occupation, while only 36% were formalized with people without studies or with primary studies. "This makes it possible for a woman with a medical career to be hired as a waitress," they warn from the union.

Directed to waiters and kellys
In addition, "they do not seem to have improved opportunities for young people to find quality employment", the report highlights, since there is a high presence of hiring for the most elementary occupations. The services sector accounts for 92% of these contracts; More specifically, they are mostly aimed at shop assistants, waiters, 'kellys', cleaning staff and laborers, while the sectors of construction and industry, where the most qualified occupations are, barely exceed 10%.

This is why the CC OO is demanding from the Government a reform that responds to the aims of dual vocational training, which is agreed with the trade union and business organizations, given that the training and youth apprenticeship contracts "have not paradoxically occupied the youngest, as it was their purpose, nor have they improved their qualification and insertion in the labor market ».