Alejandra Olcese
Updated Wednesday, March 6, 2024-02:07
Lows Resignations skyrocket by 37% since before covid
In 2023, Spain registered a
historic record of resignations,
since
2.75 million workers
voluntarily left their jobs,
260% more
than those that occurred in the country a decade ago, according to the Quarterly Observatory of the Labor Market of Fedea, BBVA Research and Sagardoy Abogados.
However, although this boom in voluntary resignations could respond to the dynamism of the labor market and the ease of finding a new job, the data show that in most cases this is not the case, since only
27%
of those who left their job They did it to end up
working somewhere else that paid better.
The remaining 73% were divided equally between those who continued to earn the same when they rejoined the labor market and those whose
salary even worsened
(36%).
In addition to the salary evolution, another piece of information that shows that turnover is not the main cause of resignations is that
58%
of those who left their jobs last year
did not return to work
in the short term or
took two months to do so
, which which seems to indicate that they didn't have a plan B when they left their job.
26% did it in a week and 11% took up to a month.
There were also no generalized improvements in the
type of contract
: "28% of the new jobs of those who previously had an ordinary indefinite contract were temporary or discontinuous permanent contracts, and 40% of those who had temporary contracts continued with this type of contract" , they point out.
That a high proportion of those who resign from their jobs do so without having another job or to change to a lower-paid one leads experts to suspect that these resignations
"are not really as voluntary"
as they seem, unless they are done to improve other working conditions (such as hours or work-life balance).
Florentino Felgueroso
, Fedea researcher and coordinator of the Observatory together with
Rafael Doménech
, head of economic analysis at BBVA Research, explains it to EL MUNDO: "In cases of great vulnerability, it may happen that
resignation is imposed
, or
it may even have been agreed upon.
at the beginning. Given that there are indefinite contracts in positions that were previously covered with temporary ones, it is possible to agree with the worker even if it is illegal for the duration to be so long and on the day that it is appropriate they resign because it is agreed upon."
"In most cases, those who resign do not improve their position or their contribution, or may even worsen. Voluntary mobility of this type
is rare.
It is difficult to prove it, but we believe that there may be cases in which it is agreed when there is a situation of vulnerability," he points out.
According to this suspicion, given that in some cases employers cannot make a temporary contract that ends at a certain time, they would be
pressuring
workers to
sign an indefinite contract in exchange for resigning on that date.
The labor reform triggers resignations
In the last decade the number of resignations has not stopped growing except for the pandemic, when there was a setback, but in 2021, 2022 and 2023 it regained its upward path.
The approval of the
labor reform
at the end of 2021 introduced a change in the trend, since until that moment there had always been more resignations of workers with
temporary
contracts in Spain (they normally aspired to find permanent employment), but since it came into force Once the rule comes into force, the voluntary withdrawals of
permanent employees
have far exceeded those of temporary employees, as can be seen in the graph.
Since 2020, while resignations of permanent employees have skyrocketed by 296%, those of temporary employees have decreased by 26%.
"The resignations of temporary employees had always been above those of permanent employees and now it is the other way around due to the growth of the last two years, 2022 and 2023, and that coincides with the reform, so it has to do in some way with her. Some hypotheses that explain this are: that there are many new indefinite contracts and it is in the first year that this abandonment occurs; and that although many temporary jobs have become permanent, they
are not attractive enough
for workers. There are many jobs that although they are now indefinite, they have not improved their quality," Felgueroso points out to this medium.
This increase in voluntary resignations among permanent employees does not occur because there has been a transfer from temporary employment to permanent discontinuous employment
,
but rather the greatest increase in resignations has occurred among employees with an
ordinary
indefinite contract , "who represented 75 % of total voluntary withdrawals between January and May 2023", according to the latest data collected by Fedea.
"The important thing is that after discontinuous permanent dismissals to go from activity to inactivity, voluntary resignations are the second that have grown the most," he emphasizes.