Las políticas de empleo público en España (1996-2017)diagnóstico y propuestas para su modernización y eficiencia

Abstract

Because of its dependence on political power and its specialization in the general interest, the public sector is characterized by the massive use of a loyalty contract that, in order to guarantee its impartiality and professionalism, incorporates a requirement of merit and capacity in the selection and promotion of public employees, and a guarantee of enhanced immobility. This idea is associated with higher salaries for appointments and permanent contracts than for temporary ones, and for these ones a more flexible mode of selection, which is adapted to immediate needs and not to the requirements of entering a professional career, of a longer duration, presumably, so a significant variation of the weight of temporality in the public sector seems to incorporate a duality of labour relations and an important dysfunction of the nature of public employment that alters the quality of public service. In Spain, the public employment policy acts in a centralized institutional framework that does not sufficiently take into account the presence of public policies and differentiated centres of political power, and in which the scope of collective bargaining appears limited and fragmented. And within this context, in the last few years such policy has been burdened with the international financial and economic crisis of 2008, which was extended until 2013 in Spain, several questions arise: What has been the orientation of the public employment policy in public administrations? What effect could this public policy have had on the ability of public authorities to act? Have equality, social inclusion, capacity for innovation and leadership of the public sector improved or worsened in the knowledge society? Does it alter the loyalty contract? In this paper, we analyse the characteristics of the statistical sources of public employment, describe some of the main features of the public employment policy between 1996 and 2017 and from the information of the Active Population Survey and National Accounts, we present its impact on some variables of the public sector that determine its capacity of action and configure the framework of labour relations: number of employees, production costs, employment of scientific-technical professionals, age, temporary employment, unemployment, gender equality, and social inclusion. A small and relatively expensive administration. Spain has a relatively small public administration with fewer employees and spends less public expenditure than the average of OECD countries and the European Union, and the production costs of the administration are lower, but it relatively spends more than them to pay its public employees. An administration with less capacity for innovation and leadership in the knowledge society and social change. Due to the reduction in the number of technicians, professionals, scientists and intellectuals, by decreasing the presence of age groups educated in the democracy period, the administration may have slowed down their capacity of understanding and leadership in the knowledge society, which in a medium term makes it difficult to adapt and question its capacity to lead the social change to which it is obliged in order to remove the obstacles that impede or hinder equality. By modifying the patterns of labour relations, the conditions of the loyalty contract that supports the public administration have also been altered. In the Spanish administration, a dual labour relation pattern stands out, in which precarious work is offered to the youngest and the stability of the loyalty contract is reserved for the elderly. A progressively ageing administration in which in 2017, as it happened in 1987, the majority of its employees were born before 1968, and is part of the predigital generations, whose first education was previous to the political change and to the process of socioeconomic modernization of the democracy period. A rigid and centralized institutional framework that lacks statistical information on public employment. Based on economic policy criteria, aimed at encouraging the growth of economy, and reducing public deficit, but without taking into consideration its medium-term effects on employment policy or on the public policies it deals with, most relevant decisions on public employment, which rigidly imply the totality of public institutions, are still adopted, in the framework of the debate of the General State Budget, in a detailed and centralized manner by the Government, modulated in periods of relevance of social dialogue by the agreements Government-Unions and by the weight of regional and functional administrations. The model does not have a comprehensive information system that links the registry of public function with labour statistics or fiscal administrative records, social security or dependency. Increasing employment and stabilizing expenditure. If we want the Spanish public sector to be more similar to the European average and, as a whole, to that of developed countries, in terms of GDP, we should stabilize expenditure and, in terms of Active Population, we should increase public employment, which requires 1,300,000 jobs to replace the generation of young people who belong to the political transition period; however, this action would not add any net growth, and to reach the average of the OECD area or the European average we should create 385,000 additional net jobs, so that the offer of new employment during the next 15 years should be close to 1,700,000 jobs. In order to reach the OECD average or that of the European Union, a simple model consists of changing remuneration for employment and its viability will be conditioned by the economic growth rate. With different variants, this orientation means that economic growth can be taken into account and the salaries of those already employed can be consolidated, ensuring, to a greater or lesser extent, that their value is updated, and with different proportions to use the margin in new jobs. It would not be just a matter of drawing a process of convergence in the volume of expenditure or employment, but of asking about the way of making decisions and the type of employment that one wants to incorporate. Growing in innovation and ensuring a sustainable career. The capacity for innovation to meet the demands and multiply the support of public policies linked to change and transformations in the knowledge society will be favoured if the pace of incorporation of technicians and professionals, scientists and intellectuals into the public sector is speeded up. Such an scenario should integrate stable employment and a new salary structure that improves professional careers, limiting the remuneration of the beginning and without widening the internal salary differences, extending the time necessary to reach the highest salary levels, extending the principle of merit and capacity as the sole criterion for compensation improvement, so that a sustainable career path can be ensured, which together with gender equality in the management of public administrations, allows to accelerate the inclusion of people with disabilities. The growth in innovation must be accompanied by a significant reduction in the number of precarious jobs offered to those born in democracy, and by setting up an employment program aimed at including the generations educated in the networked society into the public sector, a commitment to incorporate the digital age cohorts, which allows rejuvenating public services and avoiding an abrupt generational replacement. Making the decision model more flexible, promoting collective bargaining and improving public employment statistics. It is essential to have instruments to measure, with an observatory to evaluate the development of public policies, but its scope only serves to inform, not to replace public decisions, for which it is also essential to improve public employment statistics. The current mode of making decisions on public employment is related to the conception of a unique organization in which very detailed decisions are taken from the General State Budget and structurally affect the totality of public institutions. To a large extent, such mode acts in a centralized manner on a plurality of public policies and differentiated centres of political power, which respond to a great diversity of demands and social support and that has an anomalous duality in collective bargaining, which for historical reasons according to the type of contract or appointment, separates the negotiation and participation of workers from the same institution and limits the negotiation capacity, which is held back by the exercise of sovereign power. Reducing rigidity and increasing functional and regional decentralization in the decision-making process would improve the connection between revenues and expenditure, increase transparency and facilitate the participation of social and regional actors. A key issue in the decision-making process is necessarily linked to the role of social dialogue, which needs to reinforce collective bargaining in the public sphere, and to eliminate the duplicity of representation channels.