The coverage rate reached its highest value since 2020 and the average amount of the contributory benefit increased by 7.3%

MADRID, 4 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Spending on unemployment benefits increased by 6.4% in 2023, reaching 22,130.6 million euros, compared to 20,785.9 million euros in 2022, according to statistical data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy collected by Europe. Press.

The spending figure for 2023 therefore exceeds that of 2022, but not that of 2021 and 2020, when unemployment spending exceeded 24,525 and 36,396 million euros, respectively.

That last year, 2020, was exceptional due to the outbreak of the pandemic and the need to cushion its effects on employment and economic activity through different aid and temporary employment regulation files (ERTE).

The unemployment expenditure recorded in 2023 exceeds by more than 1,000 million euros the item initially contemplated in the General State Budgets of last year (20,901 million euros).

The number of beneficiaries of unemployment benefits stood at an annual average of 1,774,534 people in 2023, slightly above that of 2022, but far from the almost 3 million average beneficiaries of 2020, the year of the pandemic.

Of the set of beneficiaries in 2023, an average of 801,091 people received unemployment benefit at the contributory level, 3.6% more than in 2022, while 875,969 people received a benefit at the assistance level (subsidy, agricultural income and subsidy for workers agricultural), 0.7% less than in 2022.

To them we must add the recipients of active insertion income, who in 2023 reached an average of 97,474, 8.1% below the 2022 average.

Expenditure on contributory benefits rose by 7% in 2023, to 14,595 million euros, while spending on assistance benefits amounted to 6,967.9 million euros, 6.4% more than in 2022.

Thus, the average coverage rate against unemployment rose in 2023 to 68.3%, a figure 5.4 points higher than the 62.9% in 2022 and the highest since 2020, when the pandemic arrived.

Except for fiscal year 2020, in which the coverage rate shot up to 85%, that of 2023 has been the highest since 2011, when it exceeded 70%.

The contributory benefits paid since January 2023 incorporated the increase in the regulatory base to 60% as of the seventh month, compared to the percentage of 50% that had been applied since 2012 for the calculation of the benefit.

As a consequence, the average gross amount of the contributory unemployment benefit increased by 7.3% in 2023, to 958.6 euros per month.