Generalitat wants to turn 59,000 temporary staff into permanent employees

BarcelonaThe Generalitat has presented this Thursday a plan to the unions to convert the bulk of temporary civil servants in the Catalan administration into permanent staff. With this plan to reduce temporality, the Government wants to comply with state regulations that require temporal staff to make up under 8% of workers

Currently, 35.5% of the workers in the Generalitat's administration are temporary, according to data from the Catalan government's Department of the Presidency, figures similar to the ones pointed out by the trade unions. They make up 59,000 employees of the over 166,000 the Government has on its payroll.

By groups, the most affected are teachers: 30.000 of the 59,000 temporary workers work for the public education system. Another 17,000 temporary staff work in administration and services, with another 12,000 employed by the Catalan Health Service. These figures do not include either the 9,000 health care positions nor the 7,000 teaching positions pending to be awarded after the latest selection processes. "It is the most important reduction of temporary employment in the history of the Catalan public administration," said Joan Jaume, secretary of Administration and Civil Service of the Catalan Government.

The proposal was presented this Thursday to the unions, with which the Government will now have to discuss the conditions of the calls for access through the General Negotiating Committee of the Public Employee. The Catalan executive expects to be able to agree on a calendar for selection processes in the coming weeks and to publish the calls before the end of the year. The process should be complete before the end of 2024, the maximum term established by the regulations.

In this regard, it should be borne in mind that this reduction in temporary employment is forced by a state law passed last year which limits the maximum number of temporary personnel in all Spanish public administrations to 8%, including the central administration, local bodies and public companies and agencies. Also, if this 8% is not met, the European Union can deny an administration access to Next Generation funds for economic recovery.

Different tests

The Government's plan has several paths. The first is a merit-based competition – that is, without a public examination – for jobs held since 2016, which will allow the creation of 26,000 permanent jobs. In this case, the executive will value the services rendered, being active, having previously passed a selection process in the Generalitat, knowledge of Catalan and digital skills.

A second route, which will open 13,000 more jobs, is a competitive examination that will have a merit phase and a competitive examination. In this case, specific skills and knowledge will be assessed and it will affect positions created in 2016 and 2017.

To finish, 20,000 more positions will be filled in ordinary calls. The conditions of these tests are what the executive has to negotiate with the unions, but in all cases they will be open to both current temporary workers and all other citizens, despite the fact that the Government will give more points to people who have already worker for the administration. "The forecast is that no temporary worker will be harmed by this stabilisation," said Jaume.

This process of stabilisation only includes the Catalan administration, but not court workers nor of the rest of the Catalan independent public sector, such as universities, consortiums, public companies, foundations and other autonomous organisms. For all these, the Government will have to enforce a similar stabilisation also before 2024, but it is still compiling the data to know the total number of temporary workers and to present a plan to the union representatives soon.