To qualify an extra 1.7% in social security payments has to be made, and such payments will be accepted from today (Nov 6, 2010)

New regulations on autonomo of self-employed workers come into effect in Spain today (Saturday), allowing them to collect unemployment benefit provided that they increase their Social Security contributions by some 1.7%, on average some 15 € a month.

It means they will be able to collect dole money for a maximum period of a year, and to qualify they have to make a request to their ‘Mutua de Accidentes de Trabajo y Enfermedades Profesionales.

It is a voluntary scheme, except for so called dependent self employed workers, TRADE, where an element of risk is considered as part of the job, and here the extra contribution is obligatory.

The ATA Federation of Autónomos has said they expect a million self employed workers to sign up for the scheme in the first year, and notes too that the first payouts will not be seen until the end of 2011 as to qualify you have to have been paying for 12 uninterrupted months. What’s more the previous 48 months are looked at to calculate the length of payments and to get the whole year of dole, workers will have had to have paid in continuously over the previous two years.

There are more generous payments for workers aged over 60.
ATA president, Lorenzo Amor, said that ‘It is an historical moment in the improvement of social protection’, and he hoped that it would result in more people becoming self employed.


Source: Typically Spanish