(CNN Spanish) – The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration of Spain, Elma Saiz, announced that she will promote a reform of work incapacity that allows voluntary return to work.
Saiz said that he will open a negotiation table with social agents for the reform of temporary disability (IT), with which he wants to make more flexible, on a voluntary basis, the return to work of people with medical leave and “with their sights set” as well in disability, as explained at the New Economy Forum event this Thursday.
The minister explained that the objective is to modify the regulation to make it more flexible, as has been done with the compatibility of work and pension in the last pension agreement, since in that aspect the existing regulation “was very abrupt” and “or “You were a worker or you were a pensioner.”
“We have made this transit, on a voluntary basis, more flexible. The same in temporary disability,” said the official.
Saiz also explained that the reform could introduce greater flexibility for the return to voluntary work in the IT processes of multi-activity employees. “There are people who may be on sick leave for one activity, however, for the other they can carry out certain jobs,” he explained.
The IT benefit covers the loss of income of a worker who is temporarily unable to work due to illness or accident, and also receives health care from Social Security. Thus, with the current regulation, the time in which a worker is on medical leave it is not possible to work, since the benefit, in that case, would be denied, canceled or suspended.
According to the latest Social Security budget execution data, spending on temporary disability subsidies shot up 17.6% in the first eight months of the year, up to 10,422 million euros (US$ 11,480,875,200).
With information from Europa Press
