He Ministry of Labor last than those unemployed that they are charging a welfare subsidy can continue to receive part of this aid if they find a employment and they go on to enter a salary each month. A measure that could benefit those close to 900,000 people who are currently registered in the offices of the Public State Employment Service (Sepe) and charge a non-contributory transfer. Said improvement is part of a comprehensive reform of public employment services, which this Thursday has materialized in the definitive validation by Congress of the new employment law.
Within the Government, they are preparing the reform of the unemployment protection system, a commitment acquired with Brussels within the framework of the recovery and resilience plan and which is linked to the fourth disbursement of european funds. The idea of Labor is to have this modification approved via the Council of Ministers before Easter and that it enters into force during the last quarter of the year, according to sources familiar with the talks. The reform is ongoing, under debate within the Government and may be subject to changes.
The Government has gone and is rolling out a new ‘social shield‘ that improves protection for people who have no income from work and, in turn, improves their chances of finding a new job. With the idea that they can move from one state to another, both the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Social Security have been introducing a series of mechanisms that generate more incentives for the job reinsertion.
The objective is to break with what is known as ‘poverty trap‘, that is, that people who could access a job reject it for fear of losing the benefit or help and not being able to maintain that job for a long time. And that faced with this risk, they prefer to continue with less income but ensure the help than not risk it and try to re-engage in the labor market. This concept has already been applied by Social Security with the minimum vital income (IMV), which since January 1 allows its recipients to continue collecting part of this basic income if they get a job and start collecting a payroll.
Between one year and six months
In the Sepe they will apply this same scheme with the assistance subsidies from the month of October or November. The details are still being debated within the Executive. Some voices advocate allowing the full collection of wages with the 25% of the assistance subsidy (about 120 euros) for a period of one year. And that the enjoyment of said subsidy will not consume collection time as long as it is made compatible with labor income, in the event that the contract does not last and the person has to fully resort to the subsidy to survive. Other voices within the Council of Ministers are in favor of limiting this compatibility to six months.
In this sense, there is currently a precedent for the recipients of the active insertion income (RAI). An aid that some 19,711 people receive, according to the latest data for the month of February. And it is that if one of these unemployed finds a job or begins to work as a freelancer, they can request the suspension of the payment of the subsidy and they are entitled to an aid equivalent to 25% of the amount thereof for a maximum of 180 days, without that this reduces the duration of the subsidy that has yet to be received. About 4,000 of these currently combine RAI with a salary, according to knowledgeable sources.
This entire system for the payment of subsidies has been articulating for months by technicians from Sepe with the advice of the consultant Deloitte, which in the summer won the competition to develop the computer muscle with which to modernize the public employment services. And it is that in the framework of the reception of European funds, Sepe has an extraordinary budget of 170 million euros for the improvement of its internal tools and mechanisms.
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The Government reinforces its welfare system to encourage the unemployed to find a new job, while reorganizing its agencies to try to be more efficient and help them in that search. This Thursday, Congress has given the final green light to the new employment law, which articulates a basic bill of rights for unemployed people. This contemplates, among other things, the assignment to each unemployed person of a labor counselor of reference, that is to say, a kind of employment GP who advises you throughout your working life to retrain and find a new job.
The new standard will also convert, around the month of May, the current Sepe into the new Spanish Employment Agency. This will give the organization more flexibility and allow it to meet commitments such as delivering to each unemployed person a minimum of one job offer appropriate to their characteristics within a year. The employment law also enables the multi-year nature of training programs, which promises to increase their number and availability throughout the year, and reinforces cooperation between administrations, such as, for example, between Sepe, the Occupation Service of Catalonia (SOC) and Active Barcelona.