New recruitment bonuses

On 11 January 2023, Royal Decree Law 1/2023 was published, on urgent measures in the area of employment incentives, whose objective is to redesign the system of hiring incentives to improve its efficiency and promote quality employment.

In this article we will try to summarise the most relevant aspects related to the new bonuses approved.

Objective

The purpose of this Royal Decree-Law is to regulate incentives aimed at promoting employment contracts, as well as other programmes or measures to promote and maintain stable, quality employment financed by means of rebates on Social Security contributions and joint collection concepts, or developed by means of other employment support instruments.

Within the framework of active employment policies, the general objectives of the regulation provided for in this Royal Decree-Law are to promote the hiring of unemployed persons, especially the most vulnerable, to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the quality of employment and the professional promotion of employed persons, and to encourage job creation in the social economy.

Persons targeted by employment promotion measures

The following may be beneficiaries of the measures to promote employment:

• Persons of priority attention, who are registered in the public employment services as unemployed jobseekers.

However, registration in the public employment services will not be required for women victims of gender violence, sexual violence or human trafficking, sexual or labour exploitation, women in contexts of prostitution, victims of terrorism, disabled workers who move from the sheltered labour market of special employment centres or labour enclaves to the ordinary labour market, people at risk or in a situation of social exclusion who move from insertion companies to companies in the ordinary labour market, as well as people registered in the National Youth Guarantee System

• Workers whose contracts are converted into open-ended contracts or whose contracts are improved by the conversion of part-time open-ended contracts into full-time open-ended contracts, or of discontinuous permanent contracts into ordinary open-ended contracts in the cases provided for in the regulation.
• Workers who are replaced for reasons of reconciling work and family life or who change jobs due to risks derived from pregnancy or breastfeeding, as well as in cases of occupational illness.
• Workers who join cooperatives and worker-owned companies as working or work partners.

Requirements to be a beneficiary of the incentives

To be a beneficiary, the following will be required:

• Not to have been disqualified from obtainingpublicsubsidiesand aid and from receiving tax or Social Security benefits and incentives in accordance with Article 33.7.f) of Organic Law 10/1995, of 23 November, of the Criminal Code.
• With regard to benefits in Social Security contributions, not having been excluded from access to aid, subsidies, bonuses and benefits derived from the application of employment or professional training programmes for employment, due to the commission of serious or very serious infringements for which the statute of limitations has not expired.
• Be up to date in the fulfilment of their tax obligations.
• Tobe up to date in the fulfilment of their obligations with Social Security in relation to the payment of contributions and joint collection concepts.
• Tohave the corresponding equality plan, in the case of companies legally or conventionally obliged to implement it, in accordance with the provisions of article 45 of Organic Law 3/2007, of 22 March, for the effective equality of women and men. The requirement foreseen in the previous paragraph shall be understood to be fulfilled with the compulsory registration in a public register in accordance with the provisions of article 11 of Royal Decree 901/ 2020, of 13 October.

Obligations to maintain employment

In the case of bonuses for permanent employment contracts, including the transformation of contracts in the cases provided for in this regulation, and for the incorporation, on an indefinite basis, as working or work partners in cooperatives and worker-owned companies, the beneficiary must maintain the person receiving these measures in a situation of registration, or similar to that of registration with obligation to pay contributions, in the corresponding Social Security scheme, for at least three years from the start date of the contract, transformation or subsidised incorporation.

For the purposes of complying with the obligation to maintain registration, or a situation similar to registration, in the corresponding Social Security scheme, no account will be taken of the termination of employment contracts for objective reasons or disciplinary dismissals that have not been declared or recognised as unfair, collective dismissals that have not been declared unlawful, or terminations caused by resignation, retirement, death or total permanent disability, absolute disability or severe disability of the workers, or by termination of the probationary period.

Likewise, terminations of employment contracts caused by retirement, death or total, absolute or major permanent disability of the employer, by expiry of the agreed time in the case of training contracts or fixed-term contracts subsidised in this regulation, or by the end of the call of workers with permanent-discontinuous contracts, as well as, in the case of subrogations, for the stipulated legal causes, will not be taken into account.

Also excluded will be the termination of contracts of disabled workers from special employment centres who move from providing their services in special employment centres to the ordinary company.

Failure to comply with the obligations to maintain registration, or the situation assimilated to registration with the obligation to contribute, in the corresponding Social Security scheme, will determine the loss of the right to the corresponding incentives, with the obligation to reimburse the benefits obtained with the corresponding surcharge and interest for late payment.

Part-time contracts

In general, in the case of part-time contracts, the aforementioned amounts will be reduced proportionally according to the working day established, without this being less, for the purposes of the application of the corresponding incentives, than 50 percent of the full-time working day of a comparable worker.

Exclusions from access to bonuses

The following contracts shall be excluded from access to the incentives:

• Employment relationships of a special nature.
• Hiring that affects the spouse, ascendants, descendants and other relatives by blood or affinity, up to and including the second degree, of the employer or of those who control the company.
• Contracts made with workers who in the twelve months prior to the date of registration of the worker in the corresponding Social Security scheme had provided services in the same company or entity under a contract for an indefinite period, or in the last six months under a fixed-term contract or a training contract, whatever its modality and the duration of the working day.
• Workers who have been registered in the corresponding Social Security scheme with an open-ended employment contract for another employer within a period of three months prior to the date of registration in the corresponding Social Security scheme with the incentivised contract. This exclusion will not apply when the termination of the contract is due to recognised or declared unfair dismissal, or collective dismissal.

Control in the application of bonuses

In the case of quota rebates, the State Public Employment Service will carry out the control or verification of the objective requirements for access to and maintenance of the quota rebates.

The monitoring of compliance with the requirements and exclusions, as well as the obligations, established in relation to the social security contribution rebates will be the responsibility of the State Labour and Social Security Inspection Agency.

Summary of the most important incentives approved in this Royal Decree

Indefinite-term contracts

• Persons with limited intellectual capacity: 128 euros/month for 4 years.
• Women victims of gender violence, sexual violence and human trafficking: 128 euros/month for 4 years.
• People in a situation of social exclusion:
  • In general: 128 euros/month for 4 years.
  • If the worker hired has completed an employment contract with an insertion company during the previous 12 months, has not subsequently provided services as an employee for a period of more than 30 days for another employer after leaving the insertion company and is hired on an indefinite basis by an employer that does not have the status of an insertion company or special employment centre: 147 euros/month for a maximum period of 12 months. At the end of this 12-month period, the general bonus is applied until 4 years have elapsed.
• Long-term unemployed people: 110 euros/month or 128 euros/month, in the case of women or people aged 45 or over, for 3 years.
• Victims of terrorism: 128 euros/month for 4 years.
• Young people under 30 years of age with low qualifications and who are beneficiaries of the National Youth Guarantee System: 275 euros/month, for 3 years.
• Indefinite-term contract or incorporation as a partner in the cooperative or labour company of people who carry out practical training in companies: 38 euros/month for a maximum period of 3 years, unless the worker hired is a person with a disability, in which case the discount may be applied for the entire duration of the contract.

Training contracts

• Training contract in alternation: 91 euros/month. It also gives the right to a rebate of 28 euros/month on the worker’s Social Security contributions and for joint collection concepts.
• Transformation of training contracts into indefinite-term contracts: 128 euros/month or 147 euros/month, in the case of women, for 3 years.
• Transformation of relief contracts into indefinite-term contracts: 55 euros/month, or 73 euros/month, in the case of women, for the following 3 years.
• Training contract in alternation (rebates on employer Social Security contributions to finance the costs of the training received by the contracted worker):
  • In general: in the maximum amount resulting from multiplying the economic module established by regulation by a number of hours equivalent to 35% of the working day during the first year of the contract, and 15% of the working day in the second year.
  • Formalised with beneficiaries of the National Youth Guarantee System: the amount resulting from multiplying the corresponding economic module by a number of hours equivalent to 50% of the working day during the first year of the contract, and 25% of the working day in the second year.
• Bonus for costs derived from tutoring workers (applicable to the company’s share of Vocational Training):
  • In general: up to 1.5 euros per student and hour of tutoring, with a maximum of 40 hours per month and student.
  • Companies with less than 5 employees: up to 2 euros per student and tutoring hour, with a maximum of 40 hours per month per student.
• Hiring of research personnel under a pre-doctoral contract: 115 euros/month.

Incentives for work-life balance measures

• Fixed-term contracts signed with unemployed young people to replace workers in certain cases: 366 euros/month during the period in which the replacement contract and the respective benefit or, where applicable, temporary incapacity situation overlap.
• Subsidies in the contribution of workers replaced during the situations of birth and care of the minor, co-responsible exercise in the care of the breastfeeding minor, risk during pregnancy and risk during breastfeeding: 366 euros/month during the period in which the replacement contract and the respective benefit overlap.
• Change of job due to risk during pregnancy or breastfeeding, as well as cases of occupational illness: 138 euros/month.

Self-employed personnel

• Working or employee members of cooperative societies included in the RETA are expressly included as beneficiaries of the rebate on contributions during leave due to birth, adoption, foster care for the purpose of adoption, fostering, risk during pregnancy or risk during breastfeeding.
• The allowance for the indefinite-term hiring by self-employed workers as employees of their spouse, ascendants, descendants and other relatives by blood or affinity, up to and including the second degree, is abolished.

Remaining allowances

• Readmission of workers after having left the company due to total or absolute permanent incapacity or permanent disability: 138 euros/month for a period of 2 years, provided that the readmission does not respond to a right of the workers to return to the job.
• Incorporation of workers as working or work partners in cooperatives and worker-owned companies:
  • In general: 73 euros/month for 3 years.
  • Young people under 30 years of age, or people under 35 years of age who have a recognised degree of disability equal to or greater than 33%: 147 euros/month for the first year, and 73 euros/month for the remaining 2 years.
• Transformation into permanent-discontinuous contracts of temporary contracts signed with agricultural workers for three years: 55 euros/month, or 73 euros/month in the case of women.
• Companies in the tourism, commerce and hotel and catering sectors that generate productive activity in the months of February, March and November of each year and that start and/or maintain the employment of workers with permanent-discontinuous contracts during these months: 262 euros/month (during the aforementioned months).
• Companies engaged in activities in the sectors of agriculture, fishing and aquaculture; industry, except energy and water; commerce; tourism; hotels and catering and other services, except fixed-wing air transport, building construction, financial and insurance activities and real estate activities, as well as in other sectors or areas of activity that are legally determined, in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, with contribution accounts assigned to these companies in which they have workers with permanent contracts who work in the aforementioned cities: 262 euros/month during the term of the contracts.

Entry into force of the bonuses

In general, they will come into force on 1 September 2023.

The Labour Management Department of AddVANTE – Baker Tilly remains at your disposal for further information or to resolve any queries that may arise in relation to this article.