The duration of labor contracts registered in public employment services stood in July at an average of 45.83 days, one of the lowest values for this month in the last two decades, according to data from the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) consulted by Europa Press.
With this figure, it has been five consecutive years, since 2022, in which the average duration of contracts signed in July remains around 45 days.
Before 2022, the year in which the average duration of July contracts was 45.85 days, this indicator usually stood at higher levels, with some exceptions within the series, such as that of 2019 (47.05 days), which barely differs from the current figure.
If the historical series is analyzed, the average duration of July contracts has not dropped below 53 days since 2013, reaching its peak in 2006, with an average of 73.82 days.
That Spain chains five consecutive years with average durations close to 45 days in July is striking, considering that the labor reform of 2021 introduced penalties for very short-duration contracts and established the indefinite contract as the ordinary modality.
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 as a mechanism to disincentivize companies from resorting to extremely brief contracts, lasting just a few days or four weeks.
From the Ministry of Labor, they state that the disappearance of the work and service contract established in the labor reform of 2021 has made the data from recent years not strictly comparable with the older data collected in the SEPE series.
The explanation is that the work and service contract, which before the labor reform accounted for nearly 40% of hiring in Spain, could last months or years, thus affecting the average duration data.
With that contract leaving the statistics, which the Ministry of Labor eliminated because it was considered to be often used to cover jobs that had an indefinite nature, there has been a reduction in the average duration of contracts and it reflects to a greater extent what the actual duration of temporary hiring in Spain is.
One third of July contracts last less than a month
In July of this year, a total of 1,587,141 contracts were registered, 0.12% less than in the same month of 2025. Of all of them, 617,211 were indefinite, 1.19% more than in July 2025. Overall, 38.89% of all contracts made in July were indefinite.
For its part, 969,930 were temporary contracts, 0.93% less than in the same month of 2025. In total, these contracts represented 61.1% of the hiring carried out in the seventh month of the 2026 fiscal year.
According to data from SEPE for the month of July accessed by Europa Press, almost one in five contracts (19.4%) signed in the month (308,861 contracts) lasted less than a week, while 82,741 contracts (5.2% of the total) lasted between 7 and 15 days.
In addition, 137,051 contracts were signed with a duration of between 15 days and one month, 8.6% of the total, and 273,138 between one month and three months, 17.2%.
In this way, 33.3% of the contracts signed in July had a duration of less than or equal to one month, and half, 50.4%, lasted three months or less.
Proposals to reduce turnover: the bonus-malus system
Some specialists in the labor market have proposed different ways to tackle the high turnover of employment in Spain. Among them is the Foundation for Applied Economic Studies (Fedea), which has put forward a 'bonus-malus' system as an alternative to measures such as increasing the cost of dismissal.
Fedea believes that the labor reform has generated a true "transformation" of hiring in Spain, although it has warned that the average duration of ordinary indefinite contracts has been reduced by around 100 days.
In its view, the improvement in the formal quality of the contract has not been reflected with the same intensity in labor outcomes. Thus, it points out in a recent study, focused on young people, that the effects on the duration of employment and income are positive, but more modest.
In this way, it estimates that the reform reduced the previous gap in the duration of the first job by approximately 40%, the gap in the probability that the first job lasted at least six months by 32%, and the gap in accumulated income during that first job by 14%. When considering the entirety of the first year of the contract, the effects remain favorable, although of limited magnitude.
The main explanation, according to Fedea, is that, after the reform, the new ordinary indefinite contracts lasted less. On average, the duration of these contracts was reduced by around 100 days, with a more pronounced drop in the provinces that previously had the highest temporality.
This result suggests, according to Fedea, that part of the jobs that were previously formalized through temporary contracts have now been channeled through indefinite contracts, but without the underlying turnover disappearing completely.
In their opinion, the analysis of the causes of contract termination confirms this interpretation, as there is no significant increase in dismissals among young people with indefinite contracts.
In fact, voluntary resignations remain the main cause of the termination of the employment relationship, both before and after the labor reform, and what changes is the timing of the termination: after the reform, the exits from ordinary indefinite contracts occur earlier. Furthermore, Fedea notes a reduction in the survival rates of these contracts, especially at six, nine, and twelve-month horizons.
Limiting temporality, a necessary but not sufficient condition
For this 'think tank', imposing restrictions on temporary hiring as the labor reform of 2021 did "was necessary, but not sufficient," as dismissing with shorter-duration indefinite contracts is "relatively cheap."
Therefore, Fedea considers that if these patterns consolidate over time, it will be necessary to contemplate new measures, including the implementation of a 'bonus-malus' system to penalize "excessive" turnover that affects many workers who now have indefinite contracts and reward those companies that, on the contrary, have low turnover.
In their opinion, although indefinite hiring should be generalized, as much as possible, it is necessary to ensure that contracts have the appropriate duration "and that there are no strategic behaviors" on the part of companies, so that "they do not think that, as it is cheap to dismiss in the short term despite having more permanent contracts, they can perpetuate the policies they were already carrying out before the reform."
In this work on the effects of labor reform among young people, Fedea points out that before the reform, access to permanent contracts was between 10% and 17%, while after the reform it jumps to between 54% and 57%. This is an improvement of between 30 and 40 percentage points in the probability of obtaining a permanent contract.
Multimedia content
Interactive graph: Average duration of contracts registered in the months of July in Spain. (2006-2026)
Insertion URL: https://www.epdata.es/duracion-media-de-los-contratos-registrados-en-los-meses-de-julio-en-espana-(2006-2026)/1e0cf0e3-9dfb-4fb4-baf2-f072c839b296