Five months after the minster of Labor Valeriano Gómez modified the original aid package worth 420 euros in aid by making it worth 400 euros, we are seeing the results: more than 104,000 workers are collecting this unemployment money, and Public Employment Services have removed these people from their long-term unemployment list.
The Minister of Labor not only wanted to reduce the number of benefits applicants that Celestino Corbacho had initiated, but the link to forming in such a way that no unemployed worker could collect benefits without attending job-related education classes.
Gómez transformed the benefits programs to include a training program that paid workers 399 euros for a period of six months and trained them in skills that would help them find work.
The intention seemed good: to train unemployed workers that were taking a long time finding work, considering that unemployment benefits were using up allocated funds.
Reducing unemployment
Still, records from the old Inem (Spanish department of employment) look dubious and have put the government in an uncomfortable position. It is that the labor market, contrary to the description held by the Minister of Labor, is facing a second challenge.
Employment has grown less in the second quarter compared to 2010, when it increased by 239,771 jobs. This amount is 15,031 more than in 2011. Along the same lines, unemployment in the second quarter of 2011 was far worse than last year. From April-June 2011, 147,559 workers found jobs. In 2010 this number was 160,057.
If these figures don?t account for the more than 104,000 people that are cashing in on the new subsidy program (called Prepara), the difference is still more drastic.
