In this sense, the estimates of the government indicate that at the end of the year there should be less than 150,000 people covered under this instrument, the majority workers of difficult relocation and in sectors and companies that will no longer return to normal precovid.
That is, mainly hospitality or tourism employees who they will no longer have a day like they had before the crisis. Their companies will have to reconvert, digitize and, ultimately, dispense with their profiles. Workers who will have to be reconverted and who will be fired by their companies as soon as the ERTE ends.
As indicated a few weeks ago by the Minister of Social Security, Jose Luis Escrivá, there are a few 260,000 workers at ERTE, of which some 150,000 remain completely inactive. We are, therefore, before the last laggards of an instrument that allowed to provide social coverage to almost a million people in the hardest moments of the pandemic.
A reduction in the number of beneficiaries and a change in the profile that forces us to rethink the future of these instruments. Both in its duration and in the formulas that will begin to be negotiated from this Thursday.
Beyond december
There is no doubt that they will be extended until December because the government, unions and employers want it, but it is not clear whether they should be maintained beyond December.
At this point, the Executive has slipped that it would not be necessary, something that would support this figure of less than 150,000 people in ERTE at the end of the year, but with respect to which other members of the Social Dialogue Any questions.
In sectors such as tourism or hospitality, the voices that relate the survival of the sector and its productive fabric -mainly SMEs- to an extension until at least the first part of 2022. In fact, almost half of these workers who are still in ERTE belong to these sectors.
In any case, everything will have to do with the conditions and the alternative tools that will start trading this week. “We will look for the best forward transition solution with the social agents,” Minister Escrivá said recently.
What will be the conditions of this future extension? On several occasions, government representatives have indicated that changes were planned for the next enlargement. The number of people in ERTE has dropped and the economic and productive situation is no longer the same.
Training for workers
The social agents refuse to allow the conditions of these instruments to be lowered. They consider that the cases of people and companies that are still in ERTE are not ‘free’ and that benefits or bonuses cannot be cut if they are necessary. Therefore, what they demand from the Government is an individualized analysis of each ERTE underway.
The sources of the Social Dialogue consulted also insist that the commitment of the Government of train workers in ERTE to facilitate a possible reconversion in the event of not being able to rejoin their companies.
The ERTEs hold benefits (with an amount of 70% of the regulatory base) and the strike counter to zero. Meanwhile, companies have access to exemptions from their social contributions up to 70% (although, if it is an ERTE of activity impediment, they reach 100%).
These last exemptions are the ones that the Government would like to cut. Since its launch, ERTEs have cost the Government about 21,000 million euros. In fact, the new extension was expected to be at 2,000 million, although the departure of ERTE workers could have modified this figure.
On the other hand, by 2022 it is expected that the permanent ERTEs are underway. It is about the mechanisms of sustainability of employment (MSE), which will allow companies and workers receive aids that have not yet been developed and whose formulation is unknown for now.
Permanent ERTE
In addition, it is required to meet requirements for companies that want to host the MSE. Among them, a commitment to maintain employment, that is, that dismissal would be prohibited in these companies.
Likewise, during the period that the MSE lasts, no extraordinary hours, establish outsourcing or make new hires. Similar restrictions to those required by ERTE Covid, so everything seems to indicate that there will be social quota exemptions for companies, although the latter is not yet on the table.
In fact, the only thing that is clear in this regard is that the Government is committed to creating a financial fund to cover aid related to MSEs. As had already been raised, The idea is that said fund is covered with the surpluses of the contributions that are registered in normal years.
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Reference-www.elespanol.com