In the Balearic Islands 63,536 permanent contracts have been signed. | Jaume Morey

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The Balearic Islands, with 63,536 permanent contracts, is the autonomous community with the second highest percentage of this type of contracting in 2021, representing 17.78% of the total, and is only surpassed by Madrid, with 18.73%.

According to data from the records of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), the percentage of open-ended contracts with respect to the total number of contracts signed shows large differences by territory and, while Madrid is close to 19%, in the province of Jaén it does not reach 3%, six times less.

These data, made public this week by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, and corresponding to the close of 2021, show how far the objective set by the Royal Decree Law, of urgent measures for labour reform, the guarantee of employment stability and the transformation of the labour market, which has just come into force, is still far from being achieved. Only one out of every ten contracts signed last year, exactly 2,113,341, 10.90% of the total of 19,384,359, was indefinite, but this proportion almost doubles in some communities and provinces and is reduced to half or less in others.

By communities, the highest percentages of indefinite-term contracts corresponded in 2021 to Madrid, 18.73 %; the Balearic Islands, 17.78 %; and Catalonia, 15.09 %.
Also above the average were the Canary Islands (12.59 %) and the Valencian Community (11.23 %), as well as Ceuta and Melilla (13.34 % and 11.16 %, respectively), and close to Aragon (9.94 %), Galicia (9.86 %), Castile and Leon (9.72 %), Murcia (9.67 %), Asturias (9.62 %) and the Basque Country (9.35 %).

Castilla-La Mancha (8.69 %), La Rioja (8.66 %) and Cantabria (8.12 %) finished the year above 8 %, while the lowest percentages were those of Navarra (6.85 %), Andalusia (6.28 %) and Extremadura (5.21 %). Four provinces in the south of the Peninsula showed even lower rates: Córdoba (4.60 %), Badajoz (4.57 %), Huelva (4.06 %) and the aforementioned Jaén (2.97 %); and others were slightly above: Cáceres (6.96 %), Seville (6.93 %), Granada (6.18 %), Guadalajara (6.12 %), Cádiz (5.79 %) and Palencia (5.59 %).

On the other hand, in addition to Madrid and the Balearic Islands, other provinces had relatively high percentages, such as Girona (16.61 %), Barcelona (15.80 %), Castellón (13.47 %) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife (13.09 %), or to a lesser extent Lleida (12.35 %), Las Palmas (12.16 %), Huesca (12.11 %), León (12.09 %) and Alicante (11.78 %). Comparing these data with those recorded two years ago, in the third quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, the percentage of workers with an indefinite contract has risen more in Murcia (5.1 percentage points), La Rioja (3.1) and the Balearic Islands (2.9), as well as in the Canary Islands (2.2), Andalusia and Castilla y León (1.6), Galicia (1.4), Catalonia (1), Castilla-La Mancha (0.7), Extremadura (0.4), Cantabria (0.3) and Asturias (0.2).