The occupations that can be hired abroad have been published, which include technical construction positions for the first time

The Government has published this holiday Tuesday in the Official State Gazette the catalog of difficult-to-cover occupations for the third quarter. This is the list of jobs for which the Executive authorizes companies to hire abroad. The main novelty included in this new catalogue, as announced by EL PAÍS, is the inclusion of technical positions in the construction sector, a circumstance that had not occurred until now. Beyond the positions that the catalog always includes related to navigation (such as naval machinists or pilots of merchant ships), this time the Executive also authorizes companies to hire aluminum, metal and PVC carpenters at source; metal carpentry, aluminum and pvc assemblers; electrical installers of buildings and homes; electrical installers, in general; truck crane driver-operators; fixed crane driver-operators, in general; and mobile crane driver-operators.

The Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey, commented two weeks ago in an interview in EL PAÍS that the catalog would be published “shortly”. He stressed the message that the Ministry of Labor has been repeating for months, coinciding with the employer complaints about the lack of employees in some sectors: “Let’s see which are those professions where there may be difficulties hiring workers. It is clear, and we have it clearly verified, that in Spain there is no problem of vacancies. There is no data, starting with Eurostat, to prove it. It is not possible to proceed to a general opening. Where we see that there could be some difficulty, there is no problem in incorporating them into the catalogue”.

This diagnosis has led the Executive, for the first time, to authorize hiring at source for construction jobs. The department headed by Yolanda Díaz has been insisting that this does not open the door to hiring laborers or foremen, but positions with specific training such as those already mentioned. This jump was discussed with unions and employers at the end of June.

Then, CC OO was in favor of the change, but, like the Executive, showing a frontal rejection of a general opening. The union’s confederal head of Migration, José Antonio Moreno, who has been part of these debates since this catalog was launched in 2005, assured in June that “never before” construction professionals had been included. His union reluctantly supports the measure, “in an act of good faith and institutional loyalty,” Moreno highlighted. “We defend that there is not a vacancy problem in Spain, there is no lack of workers. But we are going to do a test with these very specific positions, since the labor authority transmits to us that it would be good to consider it ”, added the unionist. UGT sources then expressed their rejection of the inclusion of these professions, alluding to the high number of unemployed that Spain continues to register: 2.7 million and a rate of 11.7%, almost double the European average. The two unions defend giving priority to the requalification of unemployed people and greater agility of public intermediation services.

Construction workers in Seville.PACO PUENTES

Pedro Fernández, president of the National Construction Confederation (CNC), believes that this new catalog is “positive”. Although he assures that the sector had required the inclusion of more positions, he believes that those now incorporated are “a good first step”. “I know that there are companies interested in incorporating these workers as soon as possible. We will see how it works, it will depend a lot on the agility of the bureaucracy”, indicates Fernández. He details that a good part of this workforce will come from Latin America.

Although these job needs are sometimes raised by provinces, construction-related positions work throughout Spain. “The presence of an occupation in the catalog of the geographical area in question implies, for the employer, the possibility of processing the authorization to reside and work addressed to a foreign worker”, explains the SEPE on its website.

The vacancies debate

The discussion about the problems of some sectors to find labor divides unions and employers and the Government itself. The Ministry of Security, led by the Socialists and led by José Luis Escrivá, has been defending greater participation of the labor force at source to promote economic growth. The one of Labor – the one that has the last word, since the catalog depends on the Public Service of State Employment -, led by the candidate of Sumar, rejects this speech. Sources familiar with the negotiations that have led to this new catalog assure that Escrivá defended opening up hiring abroad to more profiles. Like Labor, Social Security does not defend a general opening either, but it would open its hand more for positions in which a shortage of trained personnel is identified.

The statistical reality is that, although Spain reports more vacancies than ever (149,645), the proportion is very low compared to other European countries. Spain is at the bottom of Europe in this variable, with a meager 0.9%, compared to the average of 2.8% and far from those that suffer the most from this problem, such as the Netherlands (4.7%), Norway (4 .3%) or Germany (4.1%).

Among the employers that most complain about not finding workers are those in construction, hospitality or metallurgy. Several have prepared their own studies that indicate a high level of vacancies, but Trabajo highlights that the only official statistics (the Quarterly Labor Cost Survey, prepared by the National Institute of Statistics), rejects that conclusion: “In Spain there is only this source official statistics to measure vacancies. And it is a very robust statistic, in which 28,500 companies are asked”. Given the doubts about a possible weakness in this statistic, given the contrast between what it reflects and what the employers say, the ministry repeats that “it is based on a huge sample, approved by Eurostat.” “Our rate is so low because, unfortunately, our unemployment data is very high,” they highlight in Trabajo.

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