We have never been able to offer work to all citizens who want to work in Spain and we have never been able to provide decent work to all those who work. This is the real core of our labor problems, which is not resolved by changing the legislation, but rather the productive apparatus of our country. We need more Businessbetter companies and bigger companies.
Maintaining, for four decades, an unemployment rate that doubles the European average is proof of the former, as is the fact that 48% of wage earners live in a precarious situation, according to the Institute of International Economy of the University of Alicante that has measured it, in collaboration with the CCOO through seven indicators and three dimensions, is clear proof of the latter. For example: almost half of the 300 million overtime hours recorded per year are not paid by the employer.
NOur productive apparatus, public and private, is scarce for the population that we have and contains a substantial part of it that is highly ineffective. Along with global companies that compete with an advantage in international markets, there are others that are only profitable by cheating the rules and making workers more precarious. This last poorly formed and unprepared business fabric is part of that 37% of Spanish companies that, according to the DESI (European Digitization Indicator) have a “very basic” level of digital intensity and of that 85% of Spanish SMEs that, according to COTEC does not carry out any type of R&D&i activity. Let us remember that, if the Spanish per capita income is barely nine points below the European average, our investment in R&D per capita is not even half that.
Two more data support the thesis: 98% of our companies have less than 50 workers and employ 42% of those employed. Y 21% are micro-enterprises (less than ten). This means that more than two million workers do not have collective representation bodies in their companies and a few million others, although they elect union delegates, have not recognized the existence of a works council, which undoubtedly increases the discretion of the power of the owner. Second fact, known but forgotten: with the same regulations throughout the territory, there is a wide disparity in employment situations in Spain, ranging from an employment rate of 56.7% in one Community, to 44.5% in another. Or in a maximum unemployment rate of 20% in one area and a minimum of 9% in another.
structural problem
We are therefore not facing a problem in the labor market caused by our labor legislation, nor that it can find a solution no matter how much we reform it. We are facing one of the clearest and most serious structural problems of our economy that affects the whole of social life. And I add three more data, known, but that disappear from a political debate that is too mediated and superficial. First data, 40% of the more than three million unemployed that we have, do not receive any type of benefit. Second, although we have ended 2021 with the same number of employed people that we had in the 2007 record (more than twenty million), we now have two million more inactive and unemployed people than then. Third, to get 840,000 more net employees, in 2021 it has been necessary to carry out 18.5 million initial contracts, proof of the rotation and insecurity in which a significant part of our workers live.
We are facing one of the clearest and most serious structural problems of our economy that affects the whole of social life
In Spain there are more than one million three hundred thousand companies registered with Social Security. Of these, those that are considered medium (more than 50 workers) and large (more than 250 workers) add up to some 30,000 and employ slightly more than half of the wage earners. Beyond these companies, beyond fast-growing gazelles, start-ups, unicorns… there is a wide sea of small and medium-sized companies, not all of them sufficiently professionalized, digitized, or with modern governancea, neither a solid financing structure, nor that it assumes innovation, the fight against climate change or have personnel management to match. There, more in the totally or partially submerged economy, is where we can find that volume of deficient companies, too bulky, which pulls down the growth of productivity and well-being of all.
Bad business, good business
It has been said that we are a country with too many bad companies, although with very good businesses. Our low differential productivity could find its explanation here, together with the fact that in recent years the service sector, intensive in low-skilled labor, is the one that is experiencing the greatest growth. Keep looking the other way, trying to hide this reality, visible day by day as the labor or property inspection shows that they are less isolated cases than we think, under an energetic discourse of entrepreneurship and job creation, in the abstract, It is not at all positive for Spain. We have a dual capitalismwith a nucleus of modern, competitive, globalized companies, a turbocapitalism with a nomadic behavior around the world and, at the other extreme, crappy capitalism, an important group of companies and workers in need of a clear push to bring them up to date. If it’s posible. To get an idea of the magnitude of what I am talking about: suppose that we limit the problems to only a quarter of the business fabric and the active population. We would have to consider that almost six million workers (including the unemployed) and some 325,000 SMEs have performance and qualifications far below what is required today. That is not going to correct itself. That uses fudge and illegality to stay afloat, if necessary. And that acts as a hindrance on the country as a whole, turning the matter, therefore, into a matter of public policy.
I am not talking, therefore, of those 20,000 companies that close or go bankrupt on average per year (2021 was bad), compared to the 92,000 that are created annually. Nor am I talking about the classic debate between public and private. I’m not even talking about that “buddy capitalism” that became fashionable a few years ago. I’m talking about, If we want to increase our productivity, per capita income and citizen welfare, we should go where the main obstacle is: that 25% of crappy capitalism that we have been dragging for decades, as a legacy of a mischievous and traditional past, a time that they invent, and that we better strive to leave behind. That, too, is a state policy.