• The worst year for employment. 360,000 jobs destroyed, 724,000 more unemployed and another 755,000 in ERTE

24 hours in advance and with a gift of 3,000 euros.

This is how the

Three Wise Men

arrived

yesterday at a group of workers who as soon as they woke up saw how their bank accounts had grown unexpectedly overnight.

It did not take long for the joy to spread among

the company's

WhatsApp groups

, although the jokes soon gave way to reality: it was a Sepe failure and at some point they will have to return the money. The anecdote happened between employees of a company that

It has an office in Madrid, although they ask to preserve the name of the company.

Several members of his commercial department received an unexpected income from the Public State Employment Service despite the fact that their

ERTE (Temporary Employment Regulation File)

It ended in the middle of last September.

Most of them still had small amounts pending collection for errors, for example, when counting the number of children, but in no case did the amounts rise to that level. First they let themselves be carried away by the jokes - what if buying a new car, that if to make a trip ...-, but everyone actually knew that sooner or later Sepe himself will ask them to refund the money. "Unfortunately, I am not surprised that there are errors of this type", he assures

Fernando Santiago

, President of the General College of Associations of Administrative Managers of Spain.

The organization has just presented a barometer with data collected between December 21 and 28 which, among other things, confirms that around

300,000 people still do not receive the subsidy

from ERTE.

Also, there are at least

500,000 workers who still have problems in the amounts collected

while they were affected by a temporary employment regulation file.

"Chaos" in the Administration

"We have been denouncing situations like this for months and the chaos that exists in the Administration and in Sepe itself," he adds.

Chaos

is the word that Fernando repeats the most during the telephone conversation with

THE WORLD

.

"These cases are our day to day since the pandemic began: people who are in ERTE and do not charge or people who are not in ERTE and charge, or charge the amounts wrong," explains the person in charge.

And the reasons are very clear: "

There is a lack of technical means and a lack of human resources in Sepe, which is brutal

"On the one hand, he points out that 3,500 employees have lost work in recent years and only 1,200 have been hired in these months and, on the other hand, he recalls that the agency's computer systems are 35 years old and it is" logical " Without going any further, this Monday the website of the Public Employment Service was the subject of an avalanche of criticism from users who encountered serious problems accessing it. The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy led carried out a review for the update of the multiple effects income public indicator (

Iprem

) and the barrage of consultations caused the collapse for much of the day.

Sources from the Ministry itself

They assure this newspaper that these problems were already corrected on Monday and admit not having evidence that new errors in payments occurred on Tuesday.

What do I do if I receive more money?

"Normally they tell us that our complaints are not true and they do not give us solutions, and this is how the chaos I am talking about is formed," says Fernando.

"It is, without any doubt, the Administration that has performed the worst throughout the pandemic," he laments. In any case, the representative of the administrative managers warns people who have received payments in excess of those corresponding to them for ERTE

do not throw the bells to the flight.

He assures that sooner or later they will have to return it to the public coffers and recommends that they either reject the transfer received or start the return process themselves. "They should write a letter as soon as possible addressed to Sepe saying that they have received the amounts. [wrong] and asking them to indicate the return process. It will probably take months to receive a response, but with that letter they should not have problems, "he says.

Nor should they have any penalty or interest surcharge if the response time by the Administration is extended.

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