The very backbone of the Spanish economy is made up of autónomos (self-employed workers) yet the measures announced by the Government ignore them.

Everybody waited eagerly to hear the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, announce measures that would help this struggling sector but the three million autónomos in Spain were left out in the cold.

What everybody needed to hear was that their social-security payments would be suspended – that was, after all, what the Government said it would do, but the PM has back-peddled.

Small companies and even autónomos who employ other workers can submit an ERTE (temporary suspension of employment) which will mean their employees won’t have to pay their social-security payments, but if you are employing yourself, on your lonesome, tough luck, basically.

The Chairman of the Asociación de Trabajadores Autónomos (ATA), Lorenzo Amor, has called on the Government to rectify its decision because he considers that the non-suspension of S.S. payments leaves autónomos behind on the roadside. He also calculated that the sector will lose 18,000m euros as a result of this public-health crisis.

In his opinion the Government should have suspended the S.S. payments if the Government intends to defend its hitherto posture of adjusting S.S. payments to income, because income for autónomos is “zero.”

(News: Spain)