The ministry commanded by Yolanda Díaz denies a “general problem of labor shortages”, in the style of the Great American Resignation, recognizing only a “phenomenon targeting some sectors and areas”
“In our country there is no phenomenon comparable to the Great Resignation.” This was one of the great shared conclusions drawn from the meeting held this Monday by the Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey, with the social agents to tackle the more than 109,000 job vacancies currently existing in Spain, according to data. INE officers.
Pérez Rey actively and passively rejected that a “similar phenomenon” is underway in the United States, where more than four million workers have voluntarily left their jobs in recent months. And he did not even admit that there is a “widespread problem of labor shortages in any sector of the Spanish economy.” The ministry led by Yolanda Díaz only recognizes a “focused phenomenon in some sectors and areas” of a shortage of workers attributed to precarious working conditions.
And in Monday’s meeting, first and last names were already given to those vacancies, in the absence of a more detailed analysis carried out by the unions and employers in the coming weeks. They focus on the “sectors with the greatest technical complexity”, such as information technology, cloud computing, systems analysis, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, the ‘blockchain’… for which – according to the secretary of state and later validated by the trade unions – it is necessary to requalify employees. And not so much for the current shortage, but so that it does not become a structural problem in the future, according to the CCOO.
But in addition, “specific problems and very focused on territories” are registered in the primary sector, in construction, in the hotel sector and in transport, which, according to UGT, are limited to four autonomous communities: Madrid, Catalonia, Valencia and Andalusia. However, Pérez Rey warned that one cannot speak of “a general lack of vacancies” and gave the example that the hotel sector only concentrates 4% of the total vacancies, “a very small figure”.
For this reason, Yolanda Díaz’s number two didn’t shake her voice when it came to blaming low wages and very precarious working conditions for this shortage. “It’s not so much a lack of will to work, but rather that the conditions are not sufficient to live in those cities,” said the professor, who also criticized the fact that some hotel contracts work below the minimum wage. while in these cities the average rent can be up to 1,400 euros per month. “They are not paying enough and the necessary conditions are not met to access these jobs,” he reiterated.
Under this lack of decent working conditions, he mentioned minimum wages and even under the SMI (something that would be illegal), absence of permits, weekends away, “tiring” working hours… which prevent reconciliation of work and private life. That is why the State Secretary pointed out that this has an “easy solution: pay correctly, respect working hours and combine private life with work; with that I know for sure that those vacancies will disappear like foam ».
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
