Collective layoffs fall until April while ERTE multiplies by 36

Workers affected by collective layoffs were reduced by 45% until April, to 4,250, while contract suspensions or reductions in working hours reached 826,393, a figure that multiplies by 36 that of the same period last year despite only reflecting the national ERTE.


The employment regulation statistics published this week by the Ministry of Labor thus partly reflect the way in which the labor market has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with a large use of ERTE and an employment adjustment that, Until now, it has come mainly from the end of temporary contracts.


In total, until April, 830,643 workers were affected by an employment adjustment measure, which means multiplying by 27 those of the same period last year, some 30,700.


In detail of the procedures by which they were affected, the vast Email Data majority, 830,643 (99.5%), were due to an ERTE, of which 635,495 (76.5%) were in procedures due to force majeure and 195,148 (23, 5%) in regulatory files for economic, technical, organizational and production reasons, the so-called ETOP. The rest, 4,250, 0.5% of the total, were workers affected by collective layoffs.


Labor recalls that the data only includes workers affected by national procedures, that is, provincial or autonomous community procedures are not included and that the pandemic may have delayed the communication and management of the data.


First quarter





In April, some 3.4 million workers were in an ERTE, according to Social Security data that does reflect all the files in a more up-to-date manner.


The data from the Labor statistics until April contrast with those from the start of the year - January and February before the pandemic - not only because of the sharp increase in the figures but because of the way in which they are distributed.