Almost one in five contracts signed in July, specifically 308,861 labor agreements, had a duration equal to or less than seven days, which represents 19.4% of the total, according to the latest data from the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) consulted by Europa Press. In addition, 82,741 contracts, 5.2%, were extended between 7 and 15 days.
In that same month, 137,051 contracts were formalized with a duration of between 15 days and one month, 8.6% of the total, and another 273,138 with a validity of between one month and three months, 17.2%.
Thus, 33.3% of the contracts registered in July had a duration equal to or less than one month and half, 50.4%, did not exceed three months. The average duration of the contracts registered in the public employment services was 45.83 days, one of the lowest records for a July in the last two decades.
With this figure, Spain has now chained five consecutive years, since 2022, with an average duration in July around 45 days. Before 2022, when the average was 45.85 days, this indicator used to be higher, with specific exceptions within the series, such as 2019, with 47.05 days, a figure very close to this year's.
In the historical series, the average duration of contracts in July had not dropped below 53 days since 2013, reaching its maximum in 2006, with an average of 73.82 days. The fact that in the last five Julys the duration has remained around a month and a half is striking, given that the labor reform of 2021 introduced penalties for very short-term contracts and established the indefinite contract as the ordinary form of hiring.
Specifically, the labor reform includes an additional contribution to be paid by employers upon the termination of temporary contracts of less than 30 days, which is currently set at 33.62 euros, 3.1% more than in 2025. This penalty was designed to discourage the signing of contracts lasting only a few days or just under four weeks.
From the Ministry of Labor, they emphasize that the disappearance of the contract for work and service introduced by the labor reform of 2021 makes recent data not strictly comparable with the older ones in the SEPE series. This type of contract, which before the reform represented about 40% of hiring in Spain, could be extended for months or even years, influencing the average duration upwards.
By eliminating this modality, which Labor suppressed considering that it was frequently used to cover indefinite positions, the average duration of contracts has been cut and the actual duration of temporary hiring that takes place in Spain is more visible.
Six out of ten contracts remain temporary
In July of this year, 1,587,141 contracts were registered, 0.12% less than in the same month of 2025. Of these, 617,211 were indefinite, 1.19% more than in July 2025, so that 38.89% of all contracts signed in the month were of an indefinite nature.
On the contrary, 969,930 contracts were temporary, 0.93% less than in the same period of 2025. Altogether, these contracts represented 61.1% of the hiring recorded in the seventh month of 2026.