Until the end of 2020, the Supreme Court admitted that the duration of a work contract for a specific work or service, concluded by a company to provide service to a client, could be limited to the duration of the contract itself. But a sentence of the plenary session of the Social Chamber, dated December 29, has fundamentally modified that criterion.

Specifically, the Social Chamber considers that, when the activity of the contractor consists “precisely, in developing services for third parties”, the requirement that this work or service present “autonomy and its own substantivity, within what it is the work activity of the company ”, which is required to justify the temporary nature of the work contract.

As Ignasi Beltrán, Professor of Labor Law at the UOC, explains, this is “a very important ruling, which initiates a new jurisprudential trend, which in Anglo-Saxon law is known as a leading case ”.

The teacher adds that the nuance that this resolution introduces in the previous jurisprudence is fundamental: “It ends with the formalism or subterfuge that allowed hiring temporary workers for permanent services.”

Social magistrate Carlos Galán specifies that “from now on, if the order is not unique, by itself, it will not serve to justify a contract for a specific work or service.” It is a rather novel and restrictive interpretation, because “it requires that the contracted service have weight and autonomy by itself and its completion does not depend solely on the client. It must have a beginning and an end ”.

Thus, if a company arranges for the cleaning or computer maintenance of its facilities with a third party, this in turn will not be able to hire temporary employees for this, since these needs are not specific, but structural.

In the opinion of the majority unions, the Supreme Court ruling recognizes one of their historical demands and puts an end to the generalized abuse of temporary employment in subcontractors.

In this sense, Félix Pinilla, coordinator of the UGT legal services, points out that, although the 2010 reform tried to limit contracts for a specific work or service to three years, “this limit did not apply to contracts signed before that date and in practice it was enough to renew the contract to make them eternal ”.

What is relevant, in his opinion, is that the sentence transcends the specific case and “can be applied to any multi-service company that bases its activity on outsourcing.”

Ramón Liébana, professor of Labor Law at UNIR and general secretary of the La Rioja Promotion and Construction Association, acknowledges that the high court’s ruling has fallen like “a jug of cold water” on the employers’ association and affirms that if not it has caused more commotion “it is because since it was issued at Christmas, many businessmen have not found out and do not know to what extent it will affect them.”

From his point of view, the jurisprudential shift is going to cause, in practice, contracts for works and services to disappear and indefinite contracts to become general . “When the contract is finished, the company will have to go to an objective dismissal, with compensation of 20 days per year worked and not 12, as is currently the case,” he reveals.

Liébana predicts that this increased cost of dismissal “will greatly complicate labor relations” as “subcontractors will think twice before expanding their workforces.” That is, it will have “a negative impact on employment, at least in the short term, until companies can adapt to this new situation.”

Andreu Cruañas, president of Asempleo (the main association of temporary work companies) and member of the CEOE’s executive committee, is less blunt, who does not consider that contracts for specific work or service will disappear, not only because the sentence “ it does not establish an absolute prohibition of its agreement ”, but also because“ there will continue to be temporary needs that must be covered by this contractual figure ”.

Simply, he observes, “they will not be able to apply for needs for which they were not foreseen: permanent needs”.

For his part, Liébana estimates that subcontractors will find legal formulas to continue employing temporary workers, because there are alternatives: “The main one is collective bargaining, in such a way that the social agents agree on some contractual specialty in certain sectors.”

Other options are the use of figures such as the discontinuous fixed employment contract or the part-time contract with irregular working hours, “but they involve higher costs that will make services more expensive.”

According to the magistrate Carlos Galán, the contract for works and services gives rise to many litigation nowadays as it is “a sink for fraudulent contracts that rarely comply with the law.” However, he does not believe that the Supreme Court’s ruling will cause an avalanche of lawsuits, but that its effects will be rather staggered.

“What experience tells us is that in most cases legislative or jurisprudential changes are questioned at the time of challenging the dismissal, and not before,” he says. And all this for a simple reason: the very precariousness of the labor market pushes workers not to report the illegality of their contracts until they are fired.

Much has changed in Spanish animation since, in the 1950s, the legendary Moro Studios resorted to hospital radiographs, which they then cleaned, to obtain the acetates on which they developed their animation projects.

Today we do not work with this material (which was also very flammable), and the tons of paper in which its characters came to life have given way to technological innovations such as canvases and digital tools. Since Pixar created Toy Story in 1995 , 2D animation coexists with 3D and other less widespread techniques such as stop motion , but the background of the work in 2D remains the same.

Spanish labels have, for example, well-known titles such as Klaus, Tadeo Jones, Planet 51 or Gru, my favorite villain; but also works aimed at an adult audience such as Chico y Rita (by Trueba y Mariscal), Wrinkles or O Apóstolo , a horror film made in stop motion.

It is an industry that, in Spain alone, generates more than 654 million euros and directly employs at least 7,450 professionals, according to the data provided by the White Book of the Spanish Animation and Visual Effects Industry , of 2018. But this goes far beyond cinematographic productions, and reaches across many other fields: televisions, for example, demand animation profiles to create 3D content, and it has been developed in sectors such as education, medical, marketing or video games, to name a few examples.

University training focused on animation is relatively recent in Spain, as José Antonio Rodríguez Díaz, academic director of U-Tad points out : “Unlike in other countries such as the United States, France, England or Japan, where these university studies have existed since More than 50 years ago, in Spain it did not happen until recently.

The first official degree focused on the artistic and technical profiles of animation appeared in U-Tad in 2012 ”, and although today there are others, the offer is still scarce.

This situation made, for a long time, the path to dedicate to animation was bizarre, and that it ended up arriving by trade. “Many conceptual artists who were dedicated to the design of environments and settings, such as Carlos Zaragoza (who worked on Pan’s Labyrinth) , came from Architecture; Borja Montoro, character designer who has worked for Disney and Netflix, studied Law; and for me (who studied Chemistry) it took me 15 years to reach a large production, ”says Rodríguez.

In turn, many lighting people came from Audiovisual Communication or similar degrees, and then they did a training course in tools. It was not clear how to get to the industry: “It was easier to become a striker for Depor than to work in this field,” he jokes.

Anyone who has a vocation for it, he adds in a more serious tone, can dedicate himself to animation. Because, beyond the artistic work of the animator himself, the sector accommodates very different profiles that include character and environment designers, to create that imaginary world; but also, in 3D, modelers are required; people in charge of textures and shaders ; people who make the skeleton (rig) , which is a much more technical job; lighting and special effects specialists; composition and storyboard artists and, of course, software developers , who come from programming-oriented degrees and are in high demand.

“What is common to all of them is the narrative: a person who works in animation must have a deep knowledge of the audiovisual narrative, because, after all, we are storytellers”, explains Rodríguez Díaz. But in addition to these fundamentals, it is necessary to have a technical and artistic base, that is, an extraordinary level of drawing, and a good knowledge of anatomy and gestural drawing (how to transfer emotions through drawing).

“Before modeling in 3D, you have to know what human and animal anatomy is like and master the dynamics of the body; to work in lighting, you have to study the theory of color and light, photography … For composition, I won’t even tell you, and many of the effects are particle dynamics that you can’t develop without a physics base ”, he argues Rodriguez Diaz,Planet 51.

However, the appearance of 3D animation has given rise to a paradox: “What used to constitute a fundamental barrier to entry, which was the level of drawing for certain positions such as animator, has ceased to be so, and the in the event that a person who does not know how to draw, or who does not draw well, becomes a 3D animator ”, by mastering the digital tools with which one works.

More social media and a lot less phone calls. That is the bet of Webhelp so that companies have a more direct and close communication with the public. Because calling the customer service center to solve a problem is beginning to be a thing of the past. “There are many minutes that you can save and gain efficiency,” says Julio Jolín, CEO in Spain of the French call center.

Currently, between 45% and 50% of accesses to customer service services are already made via chat or social networks, according to company data. “Of these, more than half are automated,” highlights Jolín.

The automation of some processes allows improving the customer experience and expanding the market, while the company continues to create jobs, says the head of the firm that last year had a turnover of 150 million euros in the country and that this year expects some 180 million in revenue.

The pandemic has given business a boost. Firms with a more technological profile and clients related to the world of fashion have experienced an increase in demand. That has implied greater communication with the client, sums up the executive.

“They have had a strong drop in income in the offline part and a very strong demand in the online part”, highlights the CEO of Webhelp, which closed last year with 4,000 employees in Spain. Today it has 4,700 and the forecast is to start 2021 with 5,000.

The investment in technology, people and definition of processes is continuous, says Jolín. “As a company we pursue another essential objective, which is to be able to guarantee business continuity in the event of an unwanted interruption or disaster,” says the Paris-based firm’s executive.

Among the company’s client portfolio, present in 49 countries and with 60,000 employees, Sky, Bouygues, Direct Energie, KPN, Vodafone, La Redoute, Michael Kors and Valentino stand out.

Founded in 2000, Webhelp has combined organic growth and acquisitions, enabling it to transform itself from its initial position as a local operator to being a European leader. In Spain, the company provides services from Barcelona to more than a hundred companies, mainly in sectors related to new technologies.

It also has offices in Malaga, Mallorca, Valencia and Tenerife. Today, its employees in Spain work remotely due to the health crisis. At the beginning of the alarm state, Webhelp carried out an ERTE that affected about 200 employees. But the demand on their services made them quickly reinstated.

“This is the year in which there is the most interest in participating in the event.” Luis Sancho, as CEO in Spain of BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking, is responsible for contacting large international investors to attend Spain Investors Day (SID), the forum where for two days (next January 13 and 14) listed companies meet with the world of money and which is now in its eleventh edition.

In a context dominated by the economic impact of covid-19 and the expectations of heat recovery from vaccines, Sancho detects great interest in the SID on both sides of the table.

“Companies understand that it is a great showcase to explain their situation and their expectations for the future, and investors are very interested in taking the pulse of how the Spanish economy is doing ”.

They have already confirmed their presence —which this year for health reasons will be virtual in most cases— 200 investors and the organizers believe that they may finally reach 250, a record. “We see a lot of interest in investing in sectors such as health sciences and in everything related to the energy transition,” explains the banker.

At the SID held a year ago, the focus was on the recently launched coalition government in Spain . A year later, the Executive has managed to carry out the General State Budgetsand will count for economic reconstruction with funds from the European Union.

“International investors value positively that a budget agreement has been reached because it eliminates uncertainty. Regarding European funds, everyone is aware of the importance of using them well. An advantage that we have in Spain is that the Government has a great social conscience.

But there are two ways to help the most disadvantaged. In the short term, the answer lies in the public budget, with aid, moratoriums … There is no other way to do it. But in the medium and long term, it is necessary to return the economy to the growth path and that means attracting foreign capital and making things easier for the business world, ”says Sancho.

After the outbreak of the pandemic, the Spanish Government activated a shield that is still in force in order to prevent large Spanish companies, due to their weakness on the stock market, from being bought by foreign investors .

This protection network will still be in effect for the next six months and it will surely be a topic that SID attendees are interested in. “It is true that investors do not like these shields, but it is also true that it is a measure that has been implemented throughout Europe, because there are many strategic companies that have become very vulnerable due to a temporary issue such as the coronavirus”, argues in charge of BNP Paribas.

The Spanish Stock Exchange closes 2020 in the caboose among the great financial centers of the world in terms of profitability. Sancho is confident that things will change in 2021.

“One explanation for the red numbers of the Spanish Stock Exchange is that its economy is one of the ones that has suffered the most due to the great weight of services and tourism.

However, in 2021 and 2022 we think that our economy will do better than the rest, with a growth differential between 1.5% and 2% compared to the European average. This should be reflected in a rise in the price of national shares ”.

BNP Paribas expects Spain’s GDP to collapse by 11.8% in 2020. In addition to the recession caused by the lockdowns, the year that just ended leaves a significant rebound in the deficit and public debt as a result of aid measures adopted by the Government to alleviate the effects of the crisis.

“Debt does not have to be a problem if the right measures are taken. If we take advantage of the next growth phase to reduce its weight in a systematic and rigorous way, we could correct the situation to levels close to those of before the crisis. It is an intergenerational duty. You cannot load today’s spending on future generations ”, says the manager.

The fiscal response to the crisis has been accompanied by the monetary policies of the central banks. Minimum rates and asset purchases will continue to be the trend for the ECB or the Federal Reserve in the coming months. The question is what will happen to the price of risk assets when this very powerful framework of stimuli begins to be dismantled.

“Obviously, it is one of the risks that can appear in the medium term. I believe that central banks are very aware of the situation and that is why the withdrawal of stimuli will be done little by little and measuring the impact that any decision may have. They will prefer to run the inflationary risk than to damage the economy ”, explains Sancho.

The IPOs and corporate movements are two aspects that interest investors who come to the SID. Regarding the primary market, the IPO drought has been the dominant trend for another year. “I believe that in 2021 the premieres on the parquet will be reactivated.

Especially in relation to the energy transition because there is a lot of money that wants to invest in this matter and the offer is very limited ”. As for mergers and acquisitions, Sancho expects a good year in telecommunications, renewables “and we will probably also see some movement in the industrial sector.”