• The Spanish Business Confederation of the Social Economy thus shows its rejection of the reform of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, which involves a significant cut in Social Security bonuses in favor of employment contracts with people with disabilities.
• The president of CEPES, Juan Antonio Pedreño explained in the framework of the Council for the Promotion of the Social Economy, held on November 28, that "the new legislation has been designed to endanger a multitude of Special Employment Centers of social initiative and tens of thousands of jobs for people with disabilities".
Madrid, November 8, 2022.- The Spanish Business Confederation of the Social Economy (CEPES) showed its disagreement in the Council for the Promotion of the Social Economy before the draft law of the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy that regulates incentives for labor hiring and other measures to promote and maintain stable and quality employment , for repealing part of the existing incentives for the recruitment of persons with disabilities.
This text, whose public consultation period ended on October 28, not only does not achieve any of the objectives set out in said consultation or in the Report of the Regulatory Impact Analysis (MAIN), nor does it comply with the mandate of the General Law on the rights of persons with disabilities and their social inclusion; but, According to the president of CEPES, "it represents a cut in the bonuses in Social Security contributions in favor of people with disabilities, which far from benefiting their labor insertion and their stable employment, will mean a significant reduction in the number of people with disabilities hired".
"All this endangering a multitude of Special Employment Centers of social initiative and tens of thousands of jobs for people with disabilities," Pedreño argued.
As indicated, this cut in bonuses occurs in a triple way. On the one hand, it is the equivalence of the protected employment of persons with disabilities (Special Employment Centres of social initiative) with the employment of persons with disabilities hired in ordinary enterprises, which "is discriminatory".
Also, for the elimination of bonuses to employment contracts with people with disabilities of a temporary nature, both those held in Special Employment Centers of social initiative and in ordinary companies.
And, on the other hand, for the equalization downward of bonuses, establishing monthly bonuses for indefinite employment contracts for people with disabilities "totally insufficient".
Three ways that "will jeopardize the economic viability of numerous Special Employment Centers of Social Initiative and similar entities, and the jobs of people with disabilities who work in them, by increasing disproportionately the labor costs of jobs," adds Pedreño.
People with disabilities are a group with significant employability problems, very vulnerable where 33% live at risk of poverty, so it is "essential" to develop active employment policies. As can be seen from the ´Study of the Employment of Persons with Disabilities, year 2020´ (INE 2021), the number of people with disabilities employed amounts to 516,300 people, with an employment rate of 26.7% (64.3% for people without disabilities), and with an unemployment rate of 22.2% (6.8 points higher than that of the population without disabilities).
For all these reasons, the president of CEPES adds that "it is incomprehensible that measures are adopted that can lead to devastating consequences for the employment of people with disabilities without analyzing in depth the current reality and without measuring the consequences that these measures would entail in terms of loss of current employment, disincentive of future hiring and increase public spending in other areas of social protection."
