Increasingly, more permanent contracts are being signed on the island of Lanzarote. Specifically, in March, 2,400 permanent contracts were registered, representing 41% of total contracts, compared to 30% the previous month, according to a report from the Canary Islands Employment Observatory, collected by the Lanzarote Data Center.
This demonstrates the clear impact of the Labor Reform on the working lives of workers, since, although it came into effect on March 31, it was retroactive from the beginning of the year, so employers have been gradually increasing the number of permanent contracts.
And the difference between the number of permanent and temporary contracts has been drastically reduced in the third month of 2022, going from 3,365 fixed-term agreements and 1,465 permanent contracts in February, to 3,498 temporary and 2,400 permanent contracts in March, a difference that increases if compared to the first month of the year, when there were only 863 long-term contracts.
If we take into account the average for 2021, the gap is even greater. Specifically, 88% of contracts were temporary and only 12% were permanent. It would also be expected that these low numbers were a consequence of the coronavirus, which caused the provisional closure of many businesses, but the reality is that these figures coincide with the years prior to the pandemic.
Also, in March 2022, the signing of contracts increased in general terms, with 5,898 contracts last month, compared to 4,830 in February. And if we take into account the same month of the previous year, the year-on-year increase is 188.8%.
The hotel sector was the most benefited with 2,994 new agreements, followed by the rest of the services (1,646), commerce (712), construction (395), industry (119) and agriculture (32). By municipalities, Arrecife was the one that registered the most contracts, with 1,584 labor agreements, followed by the two most tourist areas, Yaiza with 1,424 and Tías with 1,223.
Regarding the profile of the new contracts, most were young people between 25 and 29 years old, with 877 contracts signed, and between 30 and 35 years old (832 agreements). Of the total, 3,611 had completed secondary education and 1,756 had primary education.
