The Government is preparing new measures to combat the abuse of temporary employment in the public sector, a situation that, according to the data handled by the Executive, currently affects less than 200,000 workers. Among the options being considered by Public Function is a system of alerts to detect when a person exceeds three years chaining temporary contracts and a possible tightening of sanctions against the public entities responsible for these abuses.
The Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function, led by Óscar López, is working with the autonomous communities to specify the measures, as reported by RTVE. The Executive estimates that the administrations together have around 900,000 temporary workers, although it differentiates that figure from the number of people who would specifically be in a situation of abuse of temporality.
The movement occurs, moreover, with a date marked on the calendar. Spain has until August 29 to convey to the European Commission new measures to respond to a problem for which European institutions have been demanding solutions for years.
An alert system when exceeding three years
One of the main measures being studied by the Executive consists of establishing a mechanism of alerts that detects when an employee exceeds three years through fixed-term contracts.
The objective would be to identify these situations before they prolong and act to prevent temporality from becoming abusive.
Public Function is also considering tightening the consequences for public sector entities that incur in these abuses, although for the moment the possible sanctions and the procedure by which they would be applied have not been specified.
The measures are still in the study phase and are part of the work between the Government and the autonomous communities to reduce one of the structural problems of Spanish public employment.
About 200,000 workers affected by abuse
The Government establishes a difference between the group of temporary public employees and those who find themselves in a situation of abuse due to the prolongation of that temporality.
According to the data from Public Function, the administrations have around 900,000 temporary workers, while less than 200,000 would currently be affected by abuse of temporality.
The problem has a special incidence in administrations with numerous staff and explains that the autonomous communities participate in the design of the new measures.
Spain has been trying for years to reduce these figures. In 2021, the Basic Statute of Public Employees was modified and subsequently the Law 20/2021, on urgent measures for the reduction of temporality in public employment was approved, which led to important stabilization processes.
Brussels gives Spain until August 29
The pressure to introduce new measures also comes from the community institutions. The European Commission has been monitoring the Spanish situation for years due to the abusive use of temporary relationships in the public sector and for compliance with the Directive 1999/70/EC on fixed-term work.
The Government initially had until June 29 to present new measures, but requested a two-month extension.
Brussels granted that postponement, so the new deadline ends on August 29.
The Commission considers that the responses adopted so far have not been sufficient to prevent certain workers from remaining for years in temporary positions through successive contracts or appointments.
What the European Justice has said about temporary workers
The Spanish problem has reached the Court of Justice of the European Union on numerous occasions, whose rulings have questioned the effectiveness of existing measures to prevent and sanction abuses arising from the successive use of temporary labor relationships.
One of the most complex issues is how to remedy the abuse without violating the principles that regulate access to public employment in Spain, especially those of equality, merit, and capacity.
This legal tension has generated numerous litigations about the possibility that temporary public employees who have remained in this situation for years can automatically acquire the status of permanent employees.
The Supreme Court rules out automatic conversion to permanent status
The Supreme Court established in May 2026 a criterion particularly relevant for the affected workers.
The Plenary of the Social Chamber determined that a temporary worker cannot automatically acquire the status of permanent if they have not passed a selective process for access to public employment subject to the principles of equality, merit, and capacity.
Therefore, having suffered a situation of abusive temporality does not automatically mean becoming a permanent worker.
This does not mean that the abuse is without consequences. Judicial doctrine contemplates the possibility that the worker has the right to compensation when their employment relationship ends, provided that the established requirements are met and the abusive use of temporary hiring can be proven.
What may change now for temporary workers
The measures that the Executive is preparing focus, for now, mainly on preventing new situations of abuse from arising.
The alert system would allow for the detection of excessively prolonged temporary relationships, while a potential tightening of sanctions would seek to hold the administrations or public entities accountable that allow these situations to continue.
For the moment, the Government has not announced a general conversion of temporary workers into permanent workers nor a new extraordinary stabilization process.
The final scope will depend on the plan that Public Function finalizes and on the response from the European Commission. With August 29 as the deadline, the Executive has less than two weeks to specify to Brussels how it intends to strengthen the response to an abusive temporality that Spain has been trying to reduce for more than a decade.