# Dole



## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

If you are employed and are made redundant in Spain, how much dole (i.e. paid by the government) do you get and for how long?


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

jimenato said:


> If you are employed and are made redundant in Spain, how much dole (i.e. paid by the government) do you get and for how long?


I think it depends for how long you were employed and how much you paid in, but I'm sure somebody on here has a complete answer


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> I think it depends for how long you were employed and how much you paid in, but I'm sure somebody on here has a complete answer


I guess you're right. Also - what has the company making you redundant have to give you?


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## leedsutdgem (Jun 3, 2010)

jimenato said:


> If you are employed and are made redundant in Spain, how much dole (i.e. paid by the government) do you get and for how long?


Its 4 months dole for every year worked up to a maximum of 2 years. You will end up with around 80% of what your nomina was. The company should pay you a redundancy of 20 days per year worked (this is what the new labour reforms were about)


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

leedsutdgem said:


> Its 4 months dole for every year worked up to a maximum of 2 years. You will end up with around 80% of what your nomina was. The company should pay you a redundancy of 20 days per year worked (this is what the new labour reforms were about)


So assuming a salary of 10,000 per year - and you have worked for 2 years or more, would you get paid dole for 8 months and if so at what rate?

What the company has to pay you if you have worked for say 10 years would be 200 days pay which I guess at 10,000 per year would be about 10,000 (ish) (200 (ish) working days per year).


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## leedsutdgem (Jun 3, 2010)

jimenato said:


> So assuming a salary of 10,000 per year - and you have worked for 2 years or more, would you get paid dole for 8 months and if so at what rate?
> 
> What the company has to pay you if you have worked for say 10 years would be 200 days pay which I guess at 10,000 per year would be about 10,000 (ish) (200 (ish) working days per year).


I would say you will come away with 650-700 euros a month dole. When your dole runs out and if you have any children then you would be entitled to la ayuda familar of 429€ a month for 2 years max. After this you are on your own. 

Thats right about redundancy.


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## anles (Feb 11, 2009)

jimenato said:


> So assuming a salary of 10,000 per year - and you have worked for 2 years or more, would you get paid dole for 8 months and if so at what rate?
> 
> What the company has to pay you if you have worked for say 10 years would be 200 days pay which I guess at 10,000 per year would be about 10,000 (ish) (200 (ish) working days per year).


If a wage is paid monthly, there are 360 working days a year, if a daily rate is paid 365 or 366 this year! Working days by definition include paid holidays, plus your days off and legal permissions such as paternity, hospital appointments, official exams etc.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

leedsutdgem said:


> Its 4 months dole for every year worked up to a maximum of 2 years. You will end up with around 80% of what your nomina was. The company should pay you a redundancy of 20 days per year worked (this is what the new labour reforms were about)



*
On 10 February, the government approved legislation cutting severance pay to a maximum of 33 days' salary for each year worked, compared with the current 45 days.*


According to the BBC...

Even 33 days is a massive amount for some PYMES. 45 days was absurd. If a company was experiencing a downturn due to loss of orders brought about by the current economic climate and it needed to lose one worker to save the jobs of ten and keep the company solvent....if that one worker received a salary of 1200 euros a month and had work for the company for say five years, the business would have to find around 8000 euros in redundancy pay.

I think few people who aren't actually involved in running a small/medium-sized company realise how slim profit margins are. 8000 euros is a lot of money for a company employing say five people to pay out.

I've asked on another thread for realistic alternatives to making redundancies but reply there is none. In our own company there was no alternative to redundancy when we lost contracts or there was a decline in activity because of a depressed economy. Easy to say 'find another contract'...of course we did and sometimes we were lucky, in the face of stiff competition.

But there were an awful lot of companies chasing any contracts that happened to be up for grabs...just as there are very many people chasing job vacancies.

Life, to twist a well-known saying, is never plain and rarely simple. Certainly not black and white, workers v bosses. Not in today's economy.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> *
> On 10 February, the government approved legislation cutting severance pay to a maximum of 33 days' salary for each year worked, compared with the current 45 days.*


But this is only for profitable companies. If a company can show it has been running at a loss for three consecutive quarters, they will only get 20 days. 

If you are in your one-year probationary period on a permanent contract, you can now be dismissed at any time with no reason given and no compensation.

Companies will also be able to reduce pay and change contracted working conditions without having to get government approval.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

The reason I started the thread was that I was discussing this last night and was told that redundancy and so on is far more generous in Spain than the UK and this was one of the reasons the country was going 'down the pan'. Companies in severe difficulties can no longer afford to operate nor can they afford to make staff redundant. A result of this is that staff know they are unlikely to be made redundant which can lead to complacency (functionario syndrome?). Also because terms were so generous that there was little incentive for redundant workers to find a new job for quite some time.

I had been under the impression that there was very little help for unemployed people in Spain and much more in the UK (As you can tell I don't know very much about this subject).

To put it simply would I be right in thinking that redundancy and immediate benefits in Spain are (at least have been up until now) extremely generous - possibly to a fault but that long term assistance which you would get in the UK ("no one is allowed to starve") is practically non-existent in Spain?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

jimenato said:


> ...........
> 
> To put it simply would I be right in thinking that redundancy and immediate benefits in Spain are (at least have been up until now) extremely generous - possibly to a fault but that long term assistance which you would get in the UK ("no one is allowed to starve") is practically non-existent in Spain?


yep!


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Statutory redundancy pay in the UK:



> The amount of statutory redundancy pay you can get depends on a number of things. These are:
> 
> how long you've worked for your employer
> your age
> ...


Maybe you can work out a comparison?


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## Lucie123 (Dec 7, 2011)

agree with jimenato.short term spain is much better. uk better long term which leads to other issues of ppl living off benifits for life


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> But this is only for profitable companies. If a company can show it has been running at a loss for three consecutive quarters, they will only get 20 days.
> 
> If you are in your one-year probationary period on a permanent contract, you can now be dismissed at any time with no reason given and no compensation.
> 
> Companies will also be able to reduce pay and change contracted working conditions without having to get government approval.



Why should the Government intervene in what is essentially a dispute between employer and employees?

It should be a matter for unions and employer to negotiate.

Is there no Spanish equivalent of ACAS?

I cannot understand why any profitable company would want to get rid of good employees.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Lucie123 said:


> agree with jimenato.short term spain is much better. uk better long term which leads to other issues of ppl living off benifits for life


It's only better if you are working on a proper permanent contract. At least 30% of workers are on temporary contracts (including all those people who work in seasonal jobs **** tourism and agriculture) and an unknown number work "on the black". Neither of these categories get any redundancy pay and can be laid off at will.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> I cannot understand why any profitable company would want to get rid of good employees.


Usually because they can hire cheaper labour in other parts of the world. IT companies especially are notorious for outsourcing.

The publisher I worked for in the UK, after being taken over by an American company, sacked two-thirds of the UK employees and moved the customer service, production and software development operations to Singapore and India where wages are cheaper and there are no annoying labour protection regulations. The money they spent on redundancy payments was recouped in less than four years.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> Usually because they can hire cheaper labour in other parts of the world. IT companies especially are notorious for outsourcing.
> 
> The publisher I worked for in the UK, after being taken over by an American company, sacked two-thirds of the UK employees and moved the customer service, production and software development operations to Singapore and India where wages are cheaper and there are no annoying labour protection regulations. The money they spent on redundancy payments was recouped in less than four years.


Another consequence of globalisation and free trade. 

Yes, I wasn't thinking things through. I'm surprised wages are lower in Singapore, though, it ranks higher than the UK on most general prosperity indices. But India, yes, of course. My son outsources his IT work to India, mainly because of skills shortage in that field in the UK but also because of the very high rates demanded by UK professionals in that specialist field when you can get them.

When this crisis is over, some form of mutually-agreed protectionism must be on the table for discussion. Domestic industry must be protected from unfair competition from cheap, unregulated labour.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> The publisher I worked for in the UK, after being taken over by an American company, sacked two-thirds of the UK employees and moved the customer service, production and software development operations to Singapore and India where wages are cheaper and there are no annoying labour protection regulations. The money they spent on redundancy payments was recouped in less than four years.


I worked for an IT company for several years even (together with several others) doing our best to minimise costs (we were even "self employed") but when an American company came along that only wanted a couple of our programmers and our software, the rest of us were just dumped with nothing. I did manage to keep my laptop (old Tosh Sat Win 95/98) though.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Subsequent to the foregoing, I worked for Arriva (on behalf of Essec CC) who employed a number of us specifically as "minibus drivers" so that we couldn't claim the same rate of pay etc as the "big" bus drivers. When the contract came to an end, they offered to retrain us on the 'big' buses (which I didn't want) but there was no offer of redundancy. They maintained that since the had offered to retrain, there was no case for redundancy which was when they started on with "But you were employed as a Bus Driver not a minibus driver" That was when I pulled out my copy of my contract of employment which clearly stated "minibus driver" - I got £2300!

I was the only person who could do that because none of the others, on the advice of the Union, had signed a contract on the grounds that there was a clause in the contract that said that if an employee didn't work on his/her last working day (because he/she was off-sick) before a public holiday, then that person was not entitled to be paid for the public holiday which, as far as I was concerned was pefectly correct - if one is off-sick one cannot also be on holiday, public or otherwise.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

baldilocks said:


> Subsequent to the foregoing, I worked for Arriva (on behalf of Essec CC) who employed a number of us specifically as "minibus drivers" so that we couldn't claim the same rate of pay etc as the "big" bus drivers. When the contract came to an end, they offered to retrain us on the 'big' buses (which I didn't want) but there was no offer of redundancy. They maintained that since the had offered to retrain, there was no case for redundancy which was when they started on with "But you were employed as a Bus Driver not a minibus driver" That was when I pulled out my copy of my contract of employment which clearly stated "minibus driver" - I got £2300!
> 
> I was the only person who could do that because none of the others, on the advice of the Union, had signed a contract on the grounds that there was a clause in the contract that said that if an employee didn't work on his/her last working day (because he/she was off-sick) before a public holiday, then that person was not entitled to be paid for the public holiday which, as far as I was *concerned was pefectly correct - if one is off-sick one cannot also be on holiday, public or otherwise*.




Quite right too! It's the *post*, not the *person*, which is redundant.I seem to have heard/read somewhere recently though that the EU (I think) wants to bring in a rule that if you go sick during your holiday you get extra days added on...
Now that is wide open to abuse....When I was in the UK you could ring your surgery, describe your symptoms and collect a sick note.
If you're sick on your holiday...just bad luck. 
Life's like that.
In Spain as in the UK PYMEs make up a major part of economic activity....in the UK well over 70% of enterprises are SMEs, mainly small companies with fewer than ten employees and a working owner.
Do these people want to put companies out of business and further reduce their contribution to the tax take?? Just when we need growth which can only come from the private sector...which of course pays for the public sector...that and borrowing, of course, which we should not be doing....we should be reducing debt and deficit, not increasing it..although Osborne has ended up borrowing £billions more than if he had stuck to Darling's plan.
The plan is for the private sector to scoop up all these redundant public sector workers, isn't it??
In yer dreams, Gideon.
Sometimes I think these people don't live in the real world.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecci%C3%B3n_por_desempleo_en_Espa%C3%B1a
Here is some info about how the dole (prestacion por desempleo) works in Spain - possibly a little out of date due to recent legislation. Is this really "much better" than the UK, as someone here said?


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> Usually because they can hire cheaper labour in other parts of the world. IT companies especially are notorious for outsourcing.
> 
> The publisher I worked for in the UK, after being taken over by an American company, sacked two-thirds of the UK employees and moved the customer service, production and software development operations to Singapore and India where wages are cheaper and there are no annoying labour protection regulations. The money they spent on redundancy payments was recouped in less than four years.



Sometimes companies have to do this to survive, no matter how big they are...precisely because of the unrestricted competition in a global market.

The point I wanted to make though is that it's jobs, not people that are made redundant and the employer has to put up a watertight case for making these redundancies. You simply cannot make jobs redundant and then -in the UK - hire cheaper workers to do the same job.

So there is a great deal of protection for employees facing unwarranted redundancy.

Yes, hiring cheaper workers in another country is different and beyond the reach of UK law. But that's globalisation/internationalism for you... Both bosses and workers can invoke that principle when it suits them...


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

mrypg9 said:


> The point I wanted to make though is that it's jobs, not people that are made redundant and the employer has to put up a watertight case for making these redundancies. You simply cannot make jobs redundant and then -in the UK - hire cheaper workers to do the same job.


But that is precisely what will be able to happen in Spain, under the new legislation. The requirement for proving the jobs are redundant - known here as ERE - is being removed. All they have to do is show that their revenues are decreasing - no problem for a creative accountant, I´m sure,. They can also reduce wages, or hours, or both.

Key points of the Spanish labour reform - Eurojuris España


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Alcalaina said:


> But that is precisely what will be able to happen in Spain, under the new legislation. The requirement for proving the jobs are redundant - known here as ERE - is being removed. All they have to do is show that their revenues are decreasing - no problem for a creative accountant, I´m sure,. They can also reduce wages, or hours, or both.
> 
> Key points of the Spanish labour reform - Eurojuris España


But why assume that all or a majority or even a sizeable number of employers will do that?

Of course there are bad employers just as there are lazy, unmotivated workers. But more than anything Spain needs growth and growth means jobs. In a time of double dip recession there are bound to be small and medium-sized businesses which are short on orders and need to shed staff but can't afford to do so. Having to pay six times the amount of redundancy payable in the UK is simply crippling for many PYMEs.

In Germany many Mittelstand firms (PYME equivalent) cut working hours and wages in order to keep afloat and keep trained staff. Sensible German workers accepted this. Short time and reduced wages are better than no time and no wages...plus when order books start filling up again the workforce is there ready for the get-go. But Germany doesn't have as a commonly accepted viewpoint on left or right that the interests of employers and employees are mutually antagonistic.

The sad fact is that people will suffer hardship because -and this is the truth when all is said and done - the markets will not allow more money to be put in the economy. Of course it's not right, it's not fair, it's going to mean a terrible time for many....but that's how it is. The Spanish Government, like many others, is not at this time in control of its economic destiny. It should never have happened....but it did and we are living with the consequences. If we were in China, many of the people responsible for this situation would be put against the wall and shot.

As I keep on saying...reduce the deficit and debt then ensure this never happens again.


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## maxd (Mar 22, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> *
> On 10 February, the government approved legislation cutting severance pay to a maximum of 33 days' salary for each year worked, compared with the current 45 days.*
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah thanks for bringing up what a sham this still is. We made several people redundant and ended up with a severence bill of close to 100,000 euros. This was about 1.5 years ago. We were forced to do this at the worst possible time due to less income in the "crisis"

We decided the business was worth saving and pumped in 100k of our own money into the business. To be honest we have just recovered in our Spanish operation and touch wood/fingers crossed this will be quite a good year.

45 days is an absurd amount of money indeed. For the guys who had 5 years service we had to shell out nearly 20 grand a piece, then they went on the dole at 80% of their money. BTW most of them are still there, as you get 2 years before you get the reduced poverty rates. How is that going to encourage anyone to get off their ass? 20k spending money plus the dole? Ka-ching!

So now it is 33 days up to a maximum of 48 months. Still an insane amount of money for an employers in trouble.

All these guys working in the banks/government jobs are just praying for their employers to pull the trigger for a 2 year pay day + the dole.I think it used to be even 4 years salary. That is why they are called "the untouchables"


And forget about the 20 day rule if you are "in trouble", most of the time the employees have nothing to lose so they take employers to court who try this one to court and win 80% of the time. 

Never ever, ever and I mean ever, ever bother giving someone a full time job in Spain. The social time bomb starts ticking from day one and every year that goes on by you are digging a deeper hole for yourself.

The Spanish severence pay is still the most generous anywhere in the EU and the government has not gone further for fear of the unions, they are still getting it in the ear from Brussles that it is still too restrictive. The new adminstration are really missing a trick here not putting it down to normal levels.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

maxd said:


> Yeah thanks for bringing up what a sham this still is. We made several people redundant and ended up with a severence bill of close to 100,000 euros. This was about 1.5 years ago. We were forced to do this at the worst possible time due to less income in the "crisis"
> 
> We decided the business was worth saving and pumped in 100k of our own money into the business. To be honest we have just recovered in our Spanish operation and touch wood/fingers crossed this will be quite a good year.
> 
> ...


This is a very telling post. It reminds me of the company I worked for in the UK looking at new legislation concerning rights of women becoming pregnant. The decision was - we will never employ a woman again - and they didn't.


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## JTapas (Jun 25, 2012)

*Seeking advice*

Hmm I'm sensing that I may be an employee among fraught employers here, but I have a question that I hope someone can answer for me.

I've claimed dole in Spain for two months after completing a nine-month teaching contract which finished in June. I start work again next week but I won't be paid until the beginning of November, so my question is: Can I still claim dole for October even though i'm working, bearing in mind that if I didn't receive anything at all, then I wouldn't be able to afford rent/bills etc..?

I'm not out to cheat the Spanish Government or anything, i'm just concerned about a potentially awful scenario!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

JTapas said:


> Hmm I'm sensing that I may be an employee among fraught employers here, but I have a question that I hope someone can answer for me.
> 
> I've claimed dole in Spain for two months after completing a nine-month teaching contract which finished in June. I start work again next week but I won't be paid until the beginning of November, so my question is: Can I still claim dole for October even though i'm working, bearing in mind that if I didn't receive anything at all, then I wouldn't be able to afford rent/bills etc..?
> 
> I'm not out to cheat the Spanish Government or anything, i'm just concerned about a potentially awful scenario!


I don't think so - after all you are working

I don't really have any experience personally of paro - as autónoma I wouldn't get any - but why not 'hypothetically' ask at the INEM office?


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## anles (Feb 11, 2009)

JTapas said:


> Hmm I'm sensing that I may be an employee among fraught employers here, but I have a question that I hope someone can answer for me.
> 
> I've claimed dole in Spain for two months after completing a nine-month teaching contract which finished in June. I start work again next week but I won't be paid until the beginning of November, so my question is: Can I still claim dole for October even though i'm working, bearing in mind that if I didn't receive anything at all, then I wouldn't be able to afford rent/bills etc..?
> 
> I'm not out to cheat the Spanish Government or anything, i'm just concerned about a potentially awful scenario!


No you can't as you will be working. Your entitlement to dole ends on the day you start your new contract. However, it wouldn't help you in any case as you receive the dole payment on the 10 of the following month (October's dole is paid on the 10th of November) and you are likely to receive your wages befoe that date. You will receive Septembers dole on the 10th of October so that should cover you until you get paid. If it doesn't, ask explain your situation to your employer and ask for an "anticipo", which is an advance on salary owed to you and will be discounted on your next pay slip.


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## JTapas (Jun 25, 2012)

anles said:


> No you can't as you will be working. Your entitlement to dole ends on the day you start your new contract. However, it wouldn't help you in any case as you receive the dole payment on the 10 of the following month (October's dole is paid on the 10th of November) and you are likely to receive your wages befoe that date. You will receive Septembers dole on the 10th of October so that should cover you until you get paid. If it doesn't, ask explain your situation to your employer and ask for an "anticipo", which is an advance on salary owed to you and will be discounted on your next pay slip.


Ah. I didn't realise that the dole received each month was for the previous month, so yes, I actually meant September's dole, that I am due to receive on the 10th of October. Do you think that I am able to claim that particular installment then?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

JTapas said:


> Ah. I didn't realise that the dole received each month was for the previous month, so yes, I actually meant September's dole, that I am due to receive on the 10th of October. Do you think that I am able to claim that particular installment then?


yes - because you're not working in September, right?


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