Medium-term employment plan consolidates labour market measures

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The "Medium-term Employment Plan" published by the Spanish Government in September 1997 consolidates into one text all existing measures aimed at creating employment and improving its quality. The text calls for secure employment and even refers to the possible creation of a million jobs by 2000.

After seven months' work by the Interministerial Commission, the "Medium-term Employment Plan" (Plan Plurianual de Empleo) was published in September. This plan arises from the commitment made at the Essen European Council summit meeting in December 1994 by all European governments to draw up a medium-term programme containing their objectives and policies on employment. The document also forms part of the preparation for the Employment Summit that will be held in Amsterdam in November 1997.

The Medium-term Plan presents hardly any new developments, since to a large extent it summarises and brings together the various measures that were taken by the previous (Socialist) Governments. However, there are two new aspects.

The first new aspect - if that is what it can be called - is that the Plan claims that one million secure, good-quality jobs will be created by 2000. The objective is to reduce the unemployment rate to 17% of the active population. Some commentators regard this claim as optimistic if not wild, and as having a clearly propagandistic purpose with regard to the Employment Summit.

The second new aspect - the more substantial - is that the Plan consolidates the various employment promotion measures that have hitherto been dispersed. It therefore follows the Essen summit by offering an integrated programme that generates "confidence". The various measures taken by different ministries to create employment have thus been merged in a single text. These include measures adopted by the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment for the development of rural zones, the conservation of national parks and the prevention of forest fires, in addition to the 1996-9 Housing Plan and measures to support tourism and small traders.

The text also includes the commitments arising from the labour reform of April 1997 (ES9706211F), which involve promoting stable employment, vocational training programmes for unemployed people, retraining of workers and educational provisions. Vocational training will be promoted through three lines of action: official education, occupational training and continuing training of the employed. Specific programmes will also be introduced for groups with labour market difficulties, such as women, young people, the unemployed over 40 (previously 45) years of age and the long-term unemployed people.

Other lines of action are local and regional development policy, the reindustrialisation of mining zones, the development of tourism, and adjustments to promote competition in sectors such as textiles and clothing. The social economy and the so-called "third sector" are also promoted through employment programmes in cooperatives and workers' limited companies and social integration programmes through workshop schools (escuelas taller) and trade houses (casas de oficio).

In fact, the government strategy for promoting employment will be based on: attention to small enterprises; social dialogue; encouragement for secure jobs and secure part-time employment; training contracts with special attention paid to the occupations of the future; the new sources of employment (nuevos yacimientos de empleo); and the limitation of overtime. On this last point, for structural overtime hours that exceed the maximum of 80 per year, payment has been raised to the general overtime rate.

However, the Medium-term Plan arguably seems to be more a statement of intent than a feasible raft of measures, because coherent financial support has not been established.

The CC.OO and UGT union confederations have been very critical, stating that the Plan provides nothing new, and that it is a descriptive report of data and measures that were carried out by different ministries, even before the current Government under the People's Party (PP) came to power. In any case, the unions think that the most important measure is precisely the agreement reached by themselves and the CEOE employers' confederation in April 1997 on labour reform.

Furthermore, the Spanish unions, like the European Trade Union Confederation, consider that the Essen conclusions reveal the inability of European governments effectively to create policies for reducing unemployment. The main reasons put forward are that structural measures to reactivate the economy have not been adopted and funds have not been provided for training, social integration of the least favoured people or new sources of employment. In short, the proposals of the 1993 employment White Paper by Jacques Delors were limited on those very aspects that are fundamental to reactivating the economy and employment in Europe.