SPAIN and economic policy reforms: Going for growth 2012

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/9/49654663.pdf

• The GDP per capita gap relative to the upper half of OECD countries has persisted and is especially marked in labour utilisation. The recent improvement in productivity reflects labour shedding in low-productivity activities, notably in residential construction.
• Among key priority areas, progress has been made in reducing dismissal costs for workers on permanent contracts, making wages more responsive to firm-specific conditions and reducing disincentives to work in the pension system. Less has been achieved to reduce early school drop-outs and ease regulation of retailing.
• In other areas, in order to cushion the labour market crisis the government introduced temporary subsidies for new hires and training programs targeted mostly at young workers, lowered barriers for placement of the unemployed by private agencies and permanently increased resources in the public employment services.