CALL FOR PAPERS Nº 56. - DECEMBER 2026

THE CONTRACT EMPLOYMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR

The recruitment of contract staff into the civil service employment has seen steady growth within the Staff of Public sector administrations. According to data from the Statistical Bulletin on Staff in the Public Administration in January 2025, of the total number of civil servants – 3,037,432 , the 20,10% of all contracts, so – 610,426, were hired as contract staff under Labour law. This issue of Lan Harremanak aims to analyse the legal framework applicable to contract staff employment by Public Administrations.

The coexistence – not always harmonious – of two distinct legal systems, the administrative and the labour systems, built on very different principles, makes difficult to identify and apply the rules that determine the specific legal status of this group of public civil servants, as the consequence of the absence of specific legislation. The distinctive features of the public administration – which takes on many different forms, depending on its territorial scope and the powers it exercises – as an employer, arising from its dependence on administrative law, with different categories of public civil servants must be pointed out., Even when occupying identical posts, with formally separate legal statuses for hiring but with points of overlap, these circumstances prevent the standard labour regime for contracted staff applied without specific adaptations.

There is no doubt that the transposition of the employment figures under labour law to the public administration gives rise to problems and uncertainties. In fact, the missing specific legislation leaves it to the courts to overcome these difficulties by interpreting and applying the rules. For this reason, the aim of the articles in this issue is to offer an overview that may serve as a basis for designing a new body of laws, adapted to the current scenarios governing the provision of services within the Public Administration. Thus, on the one hand, it will be necessary to identify the ‘integrated and current’ body of legislation that determines the legal rules and, consequently, the working conditions of civil servants under labour law in the public administration., On the other hand, it will also be necessary to analyse the collective bargaining agreements, with the aim of highlighting the various experiences, identifying gaps or omissions in collective agreements, and formulating proposals for action that may be taken into consideration by those authorised to negotiate within each public administration.

The aim of this issue is to bring together contributions that examine and interpret the legal framework applicable to this category of civil servant staff and propose regulatory changes of service provisions by all the staff employed by public administrations. You can submit your article proposals via the following link: https://www.ehu.eus/ojs/index.php/Lan_Harremanak/information/authors

CALL FOR PAPERS

OPEN SECTION - NO SPECIFIC NUMBER

Remember that you can submit article proposals at any time; there is no submission deadline for the open section in the Journal. In all cases, LAN HARREMANAK Journal - Revista de relaciones laborales uses external peer reviewers to decide on the publication of the article proposals it receives. As author, you can follow the full process of publishing your article using the OJS (Open Journal System) application.