Díaz calls on employers to hire the long-term unemployed and those over 45: "They are in the best of their careers"

MADRID, 11 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday to distribute the record figure of 2,803.8 million euros among the autonomous communities for the management of active employment policies.

This amount will be allocated to actions to combat unemployment, especially long-term unemployment (more than a year unemployed), as well as to improve the employability of workers.

The Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, highlighted in the press conference after the Council of Ministers that these 2,803 million are "the largest investment of public funds to improve the employability" of workers that has never been done in Spain.

While in previous years the active employment policies put their emphasis on young people, whose unemployment rate is today the lowest "since the beginning of democracy", the vice-president has stressed that now they will focus on improving the employability of the unemployed long-term, most of whom are 45 or older.

This group, despite having fallen by 14%, still groups 1.2 million unemployed and is, according to Díaz, "Spain's main problem in terms of unemployment."

For this reason, the minister has not only asked the autonomous communities to "get involved" to reduce long-term unemployment and those over 45 years of age, she has also called on companies to "not do without" these workers.

"A worker who is 45 years old is surely in the prime of his professional career. Companies cannot do without this talent. I therefore appeal to the businessmen and women of our country: Hire them. Hire people long-term layovers and those over 45 years of age", emphasized Díaz.

The vice president denounced during her speech that the PP government cut investment in active employment policies by up to 1,900 million euros, leaving them on an "absolutely impossible ground" of only 1,300 million euros.

The definitive territorial distribution of the 2,803 million approved this Tuesday for active employment policies will be decided within the framework of the Sectorial Conference on Employment and Labor Affairs in the coming weeks.

Of the 2,803.8 million euros approved, 2,571.9 million will be financed from the budget of the Public State Employment Service (SEPE), while 231.8 million will be contributed by the budget of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

The distribution of funds is subject to the achievement of specific objectives and their use, as mandated by the new Employment Law, will be subject to a double evaluation, internal and external.

The objective criteria for the territorial distribution of budget appropriations, as well as their distribution, will be established in the Sectoral Conference for the autonomous communities with assumed powers in the field of work, employment and training.

The objective is for these regions to finance with these resources services and programs included in the different axes of active employment policies when they are not financed under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism.

Of the 2,571.9 million euros that will be the responsibility of SEPE, the largest amount, amounting to 1,424.3 million euros, will be allocated to the territorial management of employment and training services and programs.

Another 440.5 million euros will be dedicated to the territorial management of vocational training initiatives for employment aimed at employed and unemployed, which do not correspond to professional certificates.

In addition, 633.6 million euros will be allocated to the management by the autonomous communities of job alternation training initiatives, while 73.5 million euros will be allocated for the modernization of public employment services.

With regard to the 231.8 million from the Recovery Plan, these will be distributed according to the criteria agreed at the Sectoral Conference of July 21, 2021 for the distribution of funds under the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, since It is multi-year.

At that time, the allocation of funds was carried out based on the number of potential beneficiaries of each project. A correction coefficient was also applied based on the degree of fulfillment of the objectives of the autonomous communities, which is considered to take into account their management capacity.