They were so unknown that it was difficult to even name them. ERTE (Temporary Employment Regulation Files) was completed by COVID last Thursday, two years after their launch. This mechanism of employment hibernation was hardly used in Spain and was the main measure taken by government and social agents to overcome the crisis caused by the corovirus pandemic. Despite initial fears and criticism that “they would become ERE”, ERTE has established itself as one of the biggest successes in labor policy in recent years, according to labor market experts. They protected 4.4 million workers during those two years, the vast majority of whom returned to work, while unemployment fell to pre-pandemic levels.
To understand the importance of ERTEs, you must return in March 2020. The “shock” caused by the spread of the coronavirus in Spain was a matter of several days. With the spread of the virus, restrictions have been imposed on the homes of the population, the priority of remote work, ERTE, to maintain only substantial activities … A snowstorm of measures for an unprecedented crisis that has not destroyed GDP so much. Seen.
Employment has fallen like never before, with almost a million jobs destroyed in two weeks, but from the first moment of the pandemic a significant difference has already been appreciated compared to the past: employment has not shrunk as much as GDP has happened in Spain. In the past, but much less reduced.
The main reason for the destruction of employment was ERTE. The government agreed in a social dialogue with employers and trade unions at the beginning of the emergency health care, as assistance to companies that used to pay those who barely paid social security contributions for their templates, as well as strengthening employee protection at ERTE. Those who were guaranteed unemployment benefits even if they did not have the right to do so and without consuming unemployment.
Given the uncertainty of the moment, the message was clear: Go to ERTE before you get fired. In fact, this measure was regulated, so the objective release due to the pandemic was vetoed by law. All measures, both coercion and assistance, as well as mechanism support by employers and trade unions in companies, have forced ERTE to be massively implemented in practice.
It was no small thing. Although in countries like Germany, with significant industrial fabric, temporary regulation files were more widely used and were an important part of the recent financial crisis, prior knowledge of this mechanism was almost non-existent in Spain. In a country with a huge weight for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), there was a suspicion that the event would spread. But he did.
“I did not know what ERTE was and when they brought us in, at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a feeling that it would be a few months. But in the end I was all this time, two years, ”explains Carmen (not her real name), a museum-sector employee affected by the drop in tourists. Like their employers, many companies – about half a million – used the temporary freezing mechanism of employment. At its highest peak in April, ERTE had a total of 3.6 million employees. Unemployment registered at that time rose to 3.8 million people.
The ERTEs proved their usefulness fairly quickly, although before the fuss of the companies asking for them, there were people who had to wait several months to receive the benefits. They were a minority, according to 2% Labor figures, but on such a massive scale that 2% translated into nearly 70,000 people seeking a solution in times of great uncertainty.
The most critical questioned the effectiveness of ERTEs in the long run. PP, for example, insisted at the beginning of the pandemic that ERTE would later be transformed into the ERE, with a collective release. In fact, at the party, they considered the people protected in these COVID files to be unemployed. But time has shown how suspended workers were reduced by the resumption of work, while employment was restored and unemployment data fell.
Carmen spent six months suspending ERTE without working, and then partially switched to ERTE modality, so she was only employed part-time. In his case, the fear of losing his job, the warning of a massive dismissal, contributed to ERTE months later. “We did not know how long the files could last and the company had not yet recovered,” he recalled.
But the government extended the ERTE until restrictions on the pandemic were lifted. Two-year COVID files, until March 31st. The final number of people in the COVID-related files was 79,441 at the end of March, compared to another 17,162 ERTEs not related to the pandemic for objective reasons (ETOP). Almost half of them worked for several hours, while 50,700 had their contracts terminated altogether.
In the absence of a detailed analysis of the current employment situation of nearly 80,000 people at ERTE COVID last month, at the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare they note that they have not noticed a large solution to unemployment. It is still necessary to measure how many people have moved to the new ERTE on labor reform by opening up a network mechanism to travel agencies who continue to suffer the most from reduced activity.
In any case, this final figure of people at ERTE must be put in context from the “4.36 million” workers covered by ERTE at some point between early March 2020 and early March 2022, according to Social Security. Numbers. The photo ends with the rapid creation of employment, which restored the level of belonging before the onset of the pandemic in May and the progressive reduction of registered unemployment, even before the reduction of levels in early November, last November.
Although the dismissal reached some workers, it was not the final destination of the vast majority of people at ERTE. The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare celebrated the “great success” of this flexibility instrument this Monday and highlighted the “culture change” that they thought meant the labor market: dismissal is no longer seen as the first (and only) solution amid uncertainty. Used to be ERTE.
Source: El Diario
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