Almost two months after the DANA devastated several municipalities in the Valencian Community, Castilla La Mancha, Murcia and Andalusia, SMEs and the self-employed are finding great difficulties in accessing measures such as force majeure ERTE, and even prefer to renounce them. Official data, updated this week, show that 2,846 companies have requested to benefit from a file of this type. That figure “represents 9.5%” of the total businesses affected, according to sector sources explained to elEconomista.es.
The percentage is so small, according to those same sources, due to the “tough requirements” to which Labor has subjected the force majeure ERTEs. The alternative option, open to self-employed workers, of benefiting from aid for cessation of activity does not convince those affected either. To the point that the percentage of self-employed people who have processed it is also less than 11% of business owners devastated by the floods.
Among the main concernsand one of the key reasons why companies do not request ERTE, lies in the inability to fire workers if readjustments need to be made when normal work returns. This situation is due to the special protection provided by the measure made available to companies by the Ministry of Labor.
Specifically, one of the conditions of the ERTE due to force majeure is the prohibition of dismissing workers due to force majeure, economic, technical, organizational and production, derived from the extraordinary situation experienced at that time, as already It happened a year ago with Covid-19. In the event of failing to comply with one of the requirements to be a beneficiary of ERTE, companies They must return the help received and the dismissal will be classified as null.
A similar situation occurs with the benefit for cessation of activity requested by the self-employed, which has only been claimed by 3,411 workers self-employed, whose main reason for not doing so has been the obstacles that the self-employed face if they manage to be beneficiaries and that they can be suspended from the aid if they do not appear before the SEPE to carry out training, professional guidance and promotion activities. of the entrepreneurial activity to which you are invited, or for carrying out self-employed work or work for others in a period of less than 12 months, among other reasons established by Work.
The lines of ICO guarantees were other measures that the Government made available days after the natural disaster and that have only been requested byr 2,673 peoplesince the uncertainty about when businesses will be able to operate normally again prevents business owners from knowing if they will be able to meet the deadlines imposed to return the amount borrowed, which is around 5,000 euros.
The requirements imposed when requesting and being a beneficiary of the aid made available by the Government in exceptional situations, mean that entrepreneurs and self-employed workers choose to reject these measuressince the uncertainty and complications that could be suffered at a financial level could further complicate business situations.
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