The delegate of the Gobeirno in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz, together with the Regional Development Councilor, José Ángel Lacalzada, reported this morning
The Government of La Rioja will invest 1.5 million euros in expanding and modernizing the facilities of the Logroño Employment Office, which also houses the Benefits Office of the State Public Employment Service (SEPE).
Lacalzada has detailed that the Government of La Rioja has already acquired these new premises located on Calle Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo 23 and 25 with an area of almost 460 square meters and that, after being conditioned, they will communicate with the current one, located at numbers 27 and 29 of that same street and that will also be modernized. In this way, the regional executive will expand the area of the Employment Office of Logroño, together with the Benefits Office of the Public Service of State Employment (SEPE), by 62 percent, from the current 730 square meters to almost 1,200 square meters. On the other hand, Lacalzada has explained that the budget of the acquisition, reform of the new premises, as well as the modernization of the current facilities, amounts to 1.5 million euros, of which 75 percent corresponds to state funding; just over 1.1 million euros of the subsidies called by the Government of Spain through the Renove Plan of the Public Service of State Employment; and 25 percent, about 370,000 euros, will be undertaken with funds from the Government of La Rioja.
The councillor has detailed that this action is currently in the phase of creation of the basic project and implementation that will end in June, after which it will give way to the tender of the work with the objective that they begin at the end of 2023 and end in the middle of the year 2024, in the month of June.
In this regard, Lacalzada has also indicated that neither the activity of the Employment Office of Logroño nor the Benefits Office of the Public Service of State Employment (SEPE) will be interrupted or transferred to another place, since the works will be undertaken in three differentiated phases to continue providing the services required by the citizenship. It should be noted that currently, slightly more than 30 workers are working in the Logroño Employment and Benefits Office of the SEPE, 26 in Employment and 6 in the SEPE, which will become about 50, 28 in Employment and 20 in the SEPE, when the expansion and modernization of the facilities is completed.
The councilor thanked the Government of Spain “for granting these state funds to modernize and expand facilities aimed at continuing to implement effective active employment policies and improve the services provided to Rioja and Rioja.” In addition, Lacalzada has highlighted that this new office is a “further demonstration of the great result offered by coordinated actions, in which good understanding between administrations, in this case state and autonomous, allows to consolidate a stable, dignified and quality labor market. For this, it is essential to have effective services, as well as adequate facilities, to pay attention focused on improving employment, equal opportunities, advice to unemployed people, workers and companies, but mainly, to the needs of each person. Because the objective of the Government of Concha Andreu is to maintain the welfare state and that our region continues as one of the communities with the best employment data.
The councillor indicated that, in addition, this action responds to two of the main axes of the Vocational Training and Employment Plan 2021-2023, created within the Social Dialogue. On the one hand, axis 5 aimed at the modernization of Employment Services, to make its management more efficient towards more integrated services in society and with greater capacity to respond to the needs of workers and companies. As well as axis 1 destined to orientation and labor intermediation because the expansion of these facilities will allow to offer individualized spaces of orientation; with visual and acoustic protection to guarantee privacy; an information point for specific attention to young public, a space of public attention posts for job offers or training or a telephone attention area to speed up the management of procedures or resolve doubts, among others. In addition, the spaces of SEPE and Employment will have a shared multipurpose room that will allow the realization of workshops and talks.
For her part, the delegate of the Government, Beatriz Arraiz, has pointed out that “the policies of the Government of Spain can often be far away, but investments such as the one to be carried out for the expansion and modernization of the employment offices of Logroño become concrete actions that directly benefit the citizens and the services provided by the administrations.”
Arraiz Nalda has specified that, with these new facilities, the SEPE will double the square meters of its offices and, at the same time, double the number of staff working in them, reaching 20 people. Currently, the SEPE officials assigned to this Logroño headquarters are dedicated to paying unemployment benefits and other benefits, such as, for example, that received by people over 52 years of age.
“This important investment in the offices located in Calle Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo is another demonstration of the commitment that the Government of Spain maintains with the citizens, improving and strengthening an essential service,” he added. Finally, the delegate stressed that projects such as the one presented this morning is an example of institutional loyalty and collaboration because “it shows how in issues that are important and beneficial for the citizens, the governments of Spain and La Rioja go hand in hand with the sole objective of improving as administrations, through effective coordination that allows us to offer more and better services to the people of Rioja.”