Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras | 6 julio 2025.

CCOO and UGT ratify the extension of the ERTE scheme until 31 May 2021

  • The new pact maintains important social advances, such as setting the unemployment benefit counter to zero until 2022, the impossibility of dismissal in the first six months after the ERTE ends, the extension of exemptions and the maintenance of the benefits level
  • This new extension makes it possible for companies to stay in business, jobs to be preserved and the economy not to shrink any further

CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme reach a new agreement with the Government to extend the ERTE (Temporary Employment Regulation Schemes) until 31 May 2021. This is an extension of the previous agreement, which only introduces very specific changes with respect to the previous one, and will prevent the closure of many companies and guarantee the employment of many workers in our country.

25/01/2021.
Gerardo Cuerva, Antonio Garamendi, Yolanda Díaz, Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez pose before the meeting

Gerardo Cuerva, Antonio Garamendi, Yolanda Díaz, Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez pose before the meeting

CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme reach a new agreement with the Government to extend the ERTE (Temporary Employment Regulation Schemes) until 31 May 2021. The agreement, ratified by the executive committees of these organisations, is an extension of the previous one, which only introduces very specific changes with respect to it, and which will prevent the closure of many companies and guarantee the employment of many workers in our country.

For CCOO and UGT, this is an agreement to ensure that ERTEs remain the fundamental instrument to avoid job destruction and business closure and to ensure that the economy does not set back. This extension maintains important employment guarantees and gives certainty to society in the face of an unprecedented health, social and economic crisis until we overcome this pandemic.

In this sense, this new extension maintains important points such as:

- The "zero counter" in unemployment benefit until 1 January 2022.

- The amount of unemployment benefits remains at 70% of the regulatory base.

- All employment guarantees and the impossibility of dismissing workers affected by ERTE for six months.

- The level of social security payment exemptions.

- Training for people who are in ERTE schemes. They are considered a priority group for access to training initiatives and specific plans are programmed to adapt to these people

- Extraordinary support for people with discontinuous permanent contracts

The three modalities of ERTE

UGT and CCOO place value on the ERTE model as a flexibility mechanism that avoids using dismissal as an adjustment formula and consider this agreement to be very important for our country, as has been demonstrated since the beginning of the pandemic. For both unions, it is essential to maintain the strength of our productive frame and to continue preserving social protection for people, in order to keep the economy in the best conditions and to achieve a fair and efficient recovery for all when the pandemic comes to an end.

CCOO and UGT highlight the climate of understanding among the social partners and the fact that the agreement was reached with time margin before the end of the previous one.

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