The Government is awarded the budget for active regional employment policies to pay unemployment benefits for the coronavirus

The Government will finance the economic cost of its social shield by centralizing up to 2,400 million euros for vocational training that until now have been distributed by the autonomous communities.

Among the battery of measures launched yesterday to extend the protection measures to workers, families and companies, there is the norm by which the income derived from the contribution for vocational training paid on all payrolls of workers can be used for financing of any of the benefits and actions of the unemployment protection system.

Neither Vice President Pablo Iglesias nor Vice President Nadia Calviño nor Díaz herself explained yesterday the meaning of this change, which involves erasing at a stroke a rule approved in 2015 to finance the training of unemployed workers and which this year is budgeted at 2,414 million euros, almost half of the endowment of the Annual Employment Policy Plan (PAPE).

The PAPE is defined as a service plan and active employment policy programs that the Autonomous Communities propose to carry out, both those financed by state funds and with their own economic resources, as well as the actions and measures to be carried out by the Public Service of State Employment (SEPE), belonging to the Central Administration.

The funds are distributed according to the objective criteria agreed by the Sectoral Conference on Employment and Labor Affairs, which is convened just today . The councilors of the autonomous communities who hoped to deal with this distribution of funds by 2020 will find that the Ministry of Labor is empowered from today to use those 2,414 million euros to pay the unemployment benefits promised in the decrees to face the state of alarm.

The urgency of the situation and the volume of workers who are going to be registered in the SEPE suggest that the suppression of these training funds that are also managed by the Autonomous Communities may be a transitory and emergency measure, although the new regulation definitively cancels the final character of the contribution for the professional training of workers . In any case, the change will force autonomous governments to reformulate the financing of their active employment policies, since many of the resources that are now redirected are already committed and are now centralized. The Government, which has repeated that the body that will channel all aid to the unemployed, Sepe, has more than enough financial resources to face the wave of new applicants, did not explain yesterday the reasons for making this change . SEPE has a budget of more than 22,000 million euros for this year.

The three waves of decrees launched by the Government have led the Spanish economy to a process of hibernation that could not even have been conceived. Until now, the Executive has refused to put figures on the huge scale of the problem facing the country : there is no concrete estimate of costs; nor of spending on specific items; Nor of financing the social shield that has spread over companies, workers and families. Since March 14, 15 days have passed with the launch of measures that are not accompanied by an economic report.

The period ends tomorrow, when the Ministry of Labor releases the unemployment figures for March and the impact of the measures to stop the pandemic on the labor market is verified . In all likelihood, the price of stopping the economy into hibernation will be the highest ever seen since there are records.

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