The Council of Ministers has approved, on the proposal of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, the Royal Decree-Law on urgent measures in the field of incentives for employment.

The text is based on three basic principles, equality, stability and efficiency, since it allows to ensure access to the labor market under conditions of equality to those groups with greater difficulties and, in this sense, also to comply with article 9.1 of the Spanish Constitution; it facilitates labor integration, so it is a basic piece to guarantee stability and a resilient and inclusive labor market and also provides all the pieces for the stimuli to be efficient through an evaluation mechanism and the necessary means of coordination so that they do not overlap with the stimuli of other administrations.

It is important to emphasize that not only is access encouraged, but it goes further to promote integration, that is, quality employment and, therefore, through indefinite and full-time recruitment as a rule, compared to the scenario prior to labor reform, with a rule that promoted precarious employment.

The standard also responds to the need to unify, simplify, standardize and make more effective the incentives for hiring that are currently contained in rules that provide some 76 measures. In addition, this dispersion is accentuated by aid in the autonomous area that, until now, lacked a common legal framework that provided a comprehensive vision.

The Royal Decree-Law supports the new Employment Law and complies with Reform 7 of Component 23 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which aims to review subsidies and bonuses for employment contracts.

Recruitment incentives are focused on indefinite contracts concluded with people of priority care, as well as on the transformation of certain temporary contracts into indefinite ones.

The requirements of the beneficiary companies are simplified and homogenized. For example, for contracts financed by means of bonuses, it is established that the employer must keep the employed person in the Social Security System discharged, or assimilated to the discharged one, at least three years from the beginning of the incentivized contract.

The new regulation unifies aspects related to the amounts of bonuses in Social Security quotas. In this way, in the case of bonuses intended to promote employment, a bonus amount is established for each full calendar month, as well as the formula for calculating the amount of the bonus applicable when the worker is not registered during that entire month.

Outstanding shortcomings of solution

The hitherto existing system of incentives for hiring was in urgent need of a review of its amounts, which were in many cases out of date. It also suffered from deficiencies in the information, coordination and evaluation systems.

As the AIReF has pointed out, although the incentives available so far facilitate access to employment in periods of crisis, they do so with modest effects, in qualified profiles and that do not last over time.

Standard objectives

The Royal Decree-Law, within the framework of the Active Employment Policies (PAE), has the general objective of improving the quality of employment, its net creation and its maintenance and promoting the recruitment of unemployed people, focusing on the most vulnerable or with low employability potential; contributing to the maintenance and improvement of the quality of employment and the professional promotion of the employed people; as well as promoting job creation in the field of the social economy.

These measures will make it possible to encourage the transit of training situations in internships or by temporary contract in indefinite contracts, as well as contracting directly linked to conciliation.

Another of the priority objectives is the promotion of the recruitment of people with disabilities, prioritizing those with the greatest difficulties and, in general, the transition to ordinary employment.

It also promotes the promotion of self-employment and the social economy as an effective instrument for generating stable and quality work.

In this way, the capitalization of unemployment benefit, as a measure to promote employment, is of great importance both for working societies and for cooperatives, since it makes it possible for employed persons to acquire the status of working or working members, by making available to them the economic resources necessary to be able to acquire the actions or participations of those entities of the Social Economy that, otherwise, they would not obtain.

The regulation recognizes the sectoral and territorial dimension of employment aid and encourages the participation of the most representative business and trade union organizations, other actors and territorial levels in the development of instruments or measures that favor the fulfillment of the objectives of this regulation.

New implementation measures

They are bonus measures of new implementation:

· The bonus for the indefinite hiring of young people with low qualifications who benefit from the National Youth Guarantee System. You will be entitled to a bonus of 275 euros for three years.

· The bonus for the indefinite hiring or incorporation as a partner in the cooperative or working society of people who carry out practical training in companies. You will be entitled to a bonus of 138 €/month, for three years, or during the term of the contract if it is a person with disabilities.

· The bonus for the transformation into discontinuous fixed contracts of temporary contracts signed with workers included in the Special Agricultural System per account ajena.Dara right, during the following three years, to a bonus in the contribution of 55 euros per month, a figure that, in the case of women, rises to 73 euros per month.

In general, the amounts of recruitment bonuses have been determined on the basis of an equal reference quota for all contribution groups.

Obligation to reimburse aid from relocated companies

Companies that move their industrial, productive or business activity to territories that are not part of that of the Member States of the European Union or of the Signatory States of the Agreement on the European Economic Area, must return all the social security bonuses made during the four years immediately prior to relocation, as well as the subsidies received.

Priority to full-time hiring

In the case of part-time contracts, the amounts will be reduced proportionally according to the established working day. In any case, part-time work of less than 50 percent of a worker’s full-time work is not encouraged, except in the case of permits for conciliation.

Strengthening collective bargaining on employment

The role of Collective Bargaining in the field of employment is increased through this rule, providing the possibility of encouraging agreed measures that include commitments to improve or increase the empleo.Asimismo, recognizing the possibility of incorporating these agreements as a criterion in contracting in the public sector.

Amount of some incentives

readmissions of working people who would have ceased in the company due to total or absolute permanent incapacity to improve the employability of this group in question and are limited to indefinite contracts and to the cases in which the readmission does not obey a right of the worker, limits that are not contemplated in the current regulation. Also as a novelty, these bonuses extend to the cases of people over 55 years of age with permanent disability reincorporated into their company in another category, as well as people over that age who regain their capacity and could be hired by another company.

The bonus currently provided for the indefinite hiring of people in a situation of social exclusion (55 €/month) is increased to 128 €/month, thus matching the one established by the indefinite hiring of other vulnerable groups.

The bonuses derived from the replacements are limited for certain cases to the hiring of young people and their duration has been adjusted to the duration that the replacement contracts themselves may have.

The indefinite hiring of long-term unemployed persons entitles a higher bonus when the person hired is female (128 €/month, instead of 110 €/month). This increased bonus also extends to hiring people who are 45 years old or older.

With regard to the workout contract, it establishes bonus amounts, instead of percentages, equivalent to those that would result from applying 75% to the single company quotas provided for this contract and 100% depending on the size of the company.

The benefits in the Social Security quotas foreseen by the indefinite transformation of training contracts also have novelties derived from the unification of its regulation and increase its amount by 200% to match that foreseen by the indefinite transformation of the training contract in alternance.

In addition, as is done with the bonus for transformation of the relief contract, it is removed from the rule that only companies with less than 50 workers in discharge, as is currently the case.

The bonuses currently provided for the training in alternance, allow to finance both training costs and tutoring costs in the company, limiting the former to the training activity that, linked to the aforementioned contract, is carried out in the workplace. Instead, the bonus for tutoring costs would be applicable to all companies.

People with disabilities

Bonuses are regulated in the employer’s social security contributions relating to the hiring of people with disabilities, bonuses in the cases of contracts signed by insertion companies and bonuses for contracts for the replacement of female workers victims of gender violence or sexual violence, which maintain the current bonuses.

The White Paper on Employment and Disability, the conclusions and recommendations of which will enable future reforms to be addressed or proposed, is currently being finalised.

The General Agreement signed between the Government and ONCE on Cooperation, Solidarity and Competitiveness for the Future Stability of ONCE for the period 2022-2031 considers it necessary to maintain the 100% bonus of the company’s contribution.

Autonomous cities

Indefinite contracts for workers who work in certain sectors of Ceuta and Melilla currently enjoy a 50% bonus, which is increased to a fixed amount equivalent to 75%. This bonus is linked to the development of training actions for working people whose contracts are rewarded.