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The Generalitat will allocate 45.5 million euros to pay for the transfers, which will benefit some 9,000 self-employed workers
The ‘conseller’ d’Empresa i Treball, Roger Torrenthas announced this Monday a game of €45.5 million to distribute aid of an amount of 5,000 euros by freelancers have between one and five contracted employees. These transfers have been agreed upon with the most representative organizations among the self-employed group and are designed to strengthen micro-SMEs and encourage them to invest in the training of their workers and gain productivity. According to preliminary calculations by the ‘Ministry’, some 9,000 self-employed will benefit from this single payment.
Receipt of this single payment will be conditional on small entrepreneurs maintaining their workforce for a period of six months, counting from the receipt of the same. And also to provide training among their employees, either in matters related to the green economy, or in digital skills. The 45.5 million euros will be divided into two batches, a first of 38.5 million and another of seven million euros that will open from next year.
The distribution of these resources will be made in order of priority, putting ahead those self-employed with more workers in charge. That is, the one that has five people employed will have priority over the one that has one employee. The specific bases and distribution criteria will be finalized by the Generalitat with the social agents in the coming weeks and will be publicly announced during the month of July.
The ‘cheque’ of 5,000 euros will go directly to the coffers of the potential beneficiaries and then they will be able to access subsidized learning courses for workers, so they will not have to reinvest that entire amount in training. The ‘Conselleria’ d’Empresa i Treball will foreseeably open its web channels so that from July interested freelancers register to formally request this aid. In August The deadlines will be closed and before the end of the year the aid will be paid. Torrent has not specified the exact date of payment of the first aid package.
More aid the year in 2023 for the self-employed
The ‘conseller’ has taken advantage of the announcement of the new line of direct aid to advance another that will come out during 2023. This will be endowed with a fund of €10.9 million and will go to self-employed without employees. The idea is to pay them the social contributions of a new employee they hire and do it for 14 consecutive months. With this measure from the Generalitat they hope to help those small one-person businesses to take the leap and increase their turnover with a little help to strengthen themselves with a new employee.
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Generalitat has been taking out different aid items to alleviate the collateral effects of the health restrictions. In total, since the first state of alarm, it has distributed about €650 million, according to Torrent. An amount that exposes by “insufficient” the ‘cheque’ of 200 euros for vulnerable workers and unemployed approved by the Government this past Saturday, for which it will allocate 550 million euros. “It is the State that has the capacity for resources and to whom we demand more aid,” he added.
The last item was announced on March 1 and amounted to 60 million euros, which was divided between 40 million for companies in the restoration sector affected by the Christmas closures during the omicron rebound and 20 million for workers in erte. This last aid -of 600 or 700 euros per employee- was paid to 30,690 people on June 7. And the 40 million for the restoration have not yet been paid in full, although the first applicants are already charging and before the end of July from Empresa they foresee that everyone will have collected.