ABSTRACT
The recent crises highlighted unresolved structural issues in the Spanish labour market, such as duality between permanent and temporary workers, excessive rigidities in wage setting and collective bargaining arrangements and extreme volatility, particularly in employment. This chapter analyzes the macroeconomic impact of the 2012 labour market reform, aimed at mitigating these institutional flaws and achieving a more efficient and resilient labour market. The analysis looks at three overarching stylized facts: (a) the Wage Curve; (b) the Beveridge Curve; and (c) Okun’s Law. The main findings show that the reform has encouraged wage moderation, reduced labour market frictions and increased the resilience of the labour market to negative shocks. Paradoxically, however, the results also hint to an exacerbation of the duality problem.
