The State Public Employment Service (SEPE) offers a monthly stipend of €570 for unemployed individuals between the ages of 30 and 55 who have exhausted their contributory unemployment benefits. This new stipend has been available since April and aims to financially support those with a monthly income below 75% of the minimum wage.

"If this had happened during the pandemic, we would have left half the country without pay." This is the reflection of Josetxo Gándara, head of union action for the CCOO (Working Council of Workers' Commissions) at the Ministry of Labor and one of the employees who are at their limit due to the overwhelming situation of the state employment services. The unions denounce that the SEPE (Spanish Employment Service), the agency responsible for managing unemployment benefits, among other tasks, is in a state of collapse due to a lack of structural personnel and the problems caused by the new computer system implemented at the end of last year.

"We are feeding a time bomb". So says economist and president of human resources company ICSA Group, Ernest Poveda, before "the abuse" of temporary contracts that has monopolised the Spanish labour market for years, focusing mainly on less skilled jobs. The data prove him right. According to the State's Public Employment Service (SEPE), during the first seven months of 2021 the average duration of contracts is under two months, specifically 54.1 days. The figure is more alarming - says the economist - if you consider that the economic crisis of covid has not had any impact, since compared with recent years is a little longer. In 2007, in times of supposed economic bonanza, the median duration of contracts was 78.6 days; 2013, in full financial crisis, fell to 53.3 days, and 2019, before the pandemic broke out, it reached historic lows by dropping for the first time below 50 days. "Short-term employment has become chronic and there is an abuse of temporality and this causes instability for many workers, who have one contract after another, something that directly affects the economy and especially consumption, because a person who is in this situation does not consider buying a home or a vehicle," he exemplifies.

It was Maundy Thursday when a man in his fifties showed up at the office that the SEPE (Spanish State Public Employment Service) shares with the SOC (Catalan Employment Service) on Sepúlveda Street in Barcelona. He entered and tried to make an appointment after explaining, in desperation, that he had tried repeatedly by phone and online but there was no way. The workers told him there was nothing they could do. "He went to the office door, undressed - he even took off his mask - and insulted us for 45 minutes because we wouldn't give him an appointment", explains Miguel Ángel García, an Employment Service worker at the office. "The man was very angry, shouting and calling us all kinds of things", he adds. The incident ended when the Mossos d'Esquadra showed up, alerted by security staff, and the man got dressed up and left.