One out of every three active workers in Spain will receive extraordinary benefits from the State due to the coronavirus crisis, according to unprecedented data presented by the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, in the Congress of Deputies.

The minister has quantified 6.3 million workers, who will receive "income protection" from the State. Most of them, 60%, for entering the so-called Temporary Employment Regulation Files (ERTE), which will reach, according to Escrivá, 4 million. The rest are the 1.4 million freelancers who will receive up to 950 euros for cessation of activity or collapse of their income, said the minister; and, finally, about 900,000 who will receive unemployment benefits without meeting all the requirements for it.

Given these devastating data, Escrivá has tried to send a message of optimism, assuring that in recent days, employment has been created again and that "stabilization" is taking place after the gigantic destruction of jobs last March. He has attributed this to the shock measures approved by the Government. However, the average membership in April is around 600,000 less than in March.

Faced with the constant criticism that it receives from the associations of the self-employed, Escrivá has assured that this Friday "more than 800,000 self-employed will receive the extraordinary benefit for activities that are suspended or with a sharp drop in activity . " The spokesperson for Ciudadanos, María Muñoz, has asked her if "she has something ideological against the self-employed."

The minister has denied that the Government is being more restrictive in its shock plans than other countries and has claimed that "the reaction to the COVID-19 crisis has been much faster and more intense than that which occurred in the financial crisis 2008 ", in which José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero governed.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • José Luis Escrivá
  • Citizens
  • Congress of Deputies
  • Spain
  • José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
  • Unemployment

COVID-19 shock plan Those affected by ERTE already multiply by four the latest figure provided by the Government and reach 2.5 million

CongressCasado accuses Sánchez of "abandoning his fate" to the toilets and Abascal, of doing "everything late and wrong"

Covid-19 Congress approves extending the state of alarm until April 26 and Pedro Sánchez anticipates that he will request another extension