The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, has guaranteed this Thursday that “in the next few days” 8,000 new self-employed workers will be reimbursed the amount of the quota that they have been overcharged due to an error management. “We have started with a new system and those people who are entitled to a particularly reduced quota, this criterion has not been applied to them. There are 8,000 people out of 3.5 million (…) These administrative errors, when a new procedure is started, often sometimes it happens but it will be corrected immediately”, he explained.
In statements to RNE collected by Europa Press, Escrivá has indicated that the error in the collection of the fee to these 8,000 affected self-employed workers was detected immediately and that the cases have been identified to proceed with the refund of the amount charged for excess. As the Ministry explained yesterday, Social Security charged the normal minimum fee to the new self-employed, those who registered between January 1 and 9, instead of the 80 euros of the flat rate that corresponded to them.
For this reason, Social Security will shortly make a refund of fees ex officio to those affected by the difference between the 80 euros that correspond to them of the flat rate and the invoiced fee. In addition, Social Security will correctly calculate the contributions for the month of February and the 8,000 self-employed affected will be charged the exclusive flat rate of 80 euros.
On the second part of the pension reform
On the other hand, the minister stated this Thursday that he hopes to be able to close the second leg of the pension reform this same month of February. He has indicated that the negotiation is being “more complicated” this time because, at the request of the social agents, the reform is being discussed “simultaneously” both with them and with the parliamentary groups to guarantee its subsequent approval.
“We are looking for an agreement in both environments. The social agents have asked us to do it simultaneously and that makes the process a little more complicated because there are many elements of this final package,” explained the minister.
In any case, Escrivá has been “optimistic” and believes that this reform “will be resolved in the coming weeks” before spring. “I hope we can do it in the course of this month. That is my forecast, clearly”, emphasized the minister from Rabat, where he is attending the XII Spain-Morocco High Level Meeting.
“Morocco is a growing and very important market for Spain, not only because of proximity”
Precisely, when asked about the absence of the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, at the business forum between Spain and Morocco, Escrivá has assured that he “ignores the reason” why the leader of the employers’ association was not present and has indicated that “he noun here” is that he has perceived the figure of economic interaction between Spanish and Moroccan companies.
“Morocco is a growing and very important market for Spain, not only because of proximity”, pointed out the minister, who has announced that, in the area of migration, he expects to close hours with the Moroccan government in the next up to three agreements for ” support” “regular and safe” migration.
A “very solid and strong” labor market
Escrivá stated this Thursday that the employment data for January, with 57,726 more affiliates in seasonally adjusted terms, confirm that Spain has a “very solid and very strong” labor market, which is “enduring a very double” rate of “very”. (+ 57,726 employed) and unemployment (-13,000 unemployed), according to the minister.
The head of Inclusion has stressed that January is “the lowest seasonal month of the year” and that, therefore, the data must be observed without these seasonal components, as is the case with GDP. But even without doing so, Escrivá has highlighted that the drop in average enrollment in January 2023 and the rise in unemployment are less than those registered in January 2020, before the pandemic, when 245,000 jobs were lost and 90,000 people added to unemployment lists.
For the minister, the seasonally adjusted data show that the labor market “has started the year well” and although he did not want to anticipate what will happen in the coming months, he did say that employment “will only grow”. In fact, he has stated that the probability that February is also a good month “is great”.
Escrivá has valued the greater “quality” of employment that the labor reform has brought, with a reduction in temporary employment that is emerging especially for young people. “A year ago there were four million temporary contracts, now there are less than two million”, highlighted the minister, who added that of all the new permanent contracts, three out of four are permanent and one out of four are permanent-discontinuous . “The change is radical,” he remarked.
Regarding fixed-discontinuous workers, the minister explained that they are not included in the affiliation series, so those who are not working now are not included in the data published this Thursday by Social Security.
Escrivá has also highlighted that a lot of employment is being created in sectors with high added value. Thus, although since the pandemic began employment has grown by more than 5%, in activity sectors such as high-value professionals and scientific-technical sectors, it has warned of over 10%, while the hospitality industry “is practically like at the beginning of the pandemic”.
