Why 1 Million New Jobs in Spain May Be Bad News

Spain created about 500,000 jobs last year, more than any euro zone country except Germany. With the economy forecast to grow a healthy 2.9 percent in 2015, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy predicts another 500,000 jobs will be created by year's end—evidence, his government says, that Spain is benefiting from reforms enacted in 2012 to make its labor market more flexible and competitive.

But the bad news for workers is that nearly all these new jobs are short-term, low-paid, and dead-end—what the Spanish call trabajo basura, or garbage work. Government data show that 92 percent of the positions being created are temporary, with some lasting only a few days. One-fourth of labor contracts signed during the first three months of 2015 were for one week or less. Spanish temps make an average 12,000 euros ($13,300) annually, about half what's earned by people with long-term contracts.