PKF Attest

Labor/HR

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Royal Decree-Law 11/2024, of December 23, to improve the compatibility of the retirement pension with work (BOE No. 309, of December 24, 2024) has introduced significant changes in the regulation of active retirement and partial retirement, among other measures, so that workers, when their retirement time comes, can leave the labor market in a more progressive and flexible manner, thus adapting the retirement pension to the needs and situation of each person.

The changes relating to active retirement and partial retirement will begin to apply on April 1, 2025, so it is worth knowing them closely.

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The main changes are detailed below:

Active retirement

The waiting period of 1 year from the retirement age is maintained, but a stumbling block that made access to this figure difficult in many cases, the requirement of having a full contribution career, is eliminated.

As of April 1, it will be sufficient to make the necessary contributions to qualify for a retirement pension, which, by reducing the number of years of contributions required, will facilitate access to this form of retirement compatible with work.

The incompatibility between the active retirement pension and the delay supplement of article 210.2 LGSS, provided for those who retire one or more years after reaching the ordinary retirement age that corresponds to them according to article 205.1.a) LGSS, is also eliminated.

On the other hand, the amount of the active retirement pension is modified in order to provide an incentive to remain in the activity. The amount is no longer 50% of the recognized pension and is replaced by a variable percentage depending on the time of delay in obtaining the retirement pension from the ordinary retirement age, ranging from 45% of the recognized retirement pension when the delay in accessing the pension has been one year, to 100% of the pension if access to the pension has been delayed for 5 or more years. In addition, the percentage of the pension will be increased by 5 percentage points for each 12 months of uninterrupted professional activity, without, in any case, exceeding 100% of the pension.

Partial Retirement

The amendment affects the reduction of working hours, which is extended to a maximum of 75% (until now 50%) and the possibility of anticipating the retirement age of Article 215 LGSS is extended from two to three years, with a reduction of between 25% and 75% (until now 50%, and may reach 75% in cases where the relief worker is hired full time with a permanent contract), although in cases of anticipation of more than two years the reduction of working hours allowed during the first year is less, between 20% and 33%.

In turn, in cases of early partial retirement, the relief contracts established will be of an indefinite term and full time nature, and must be maintained for at least two years after the partial retirement is terminated. In addition, the partial retirement modality is now extended to worker or worker-members of cooperatives assimilated to employees.

Regarding the special regulation of partial retirement for workers in the manufacturing industry, the current framework is extended up to and including 2029, with some adjustments to improve the conditions of the relief worker.

Delayed Retirement

The possibility of receiving an additional incentive for every 6 months of delay as from the second year and not only every 12 months is introduced, which represents a greater reward for prolonging working life. Additional measures are also included to improve the conditions of access to retirement for permanent-discontinuous workers. In this sense, the multiplier coefficient of 1.5 for the calculation of benefits such as retirement, permanent disability and death and survival, which was applied in the regulation prior to the reform, is recovered.

If you would like more information about this new development or have any questions about labor law, please contact our experts.

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Numerous news items are swarming around the recent Royal Decree 1060/2022, of December 27, which will amend Royal Decree 625/2014, of July 18, which has been regulating certain aspects of the management and control of temporary disability processes in the first three hundred and sixty-five days of their duration.

In the following article, we will report on the most significant changes:

  • The second copy will be eliminated in the medical reports of sick leave and discharge, and only one copy will be given to the worker.
  • As indicated above, the worker will not have to submit a copy of the sick leave report to his company, considering that this eliminates the bureaucratic obligations for the patient, who, being in a situation of temporary disability, could be burdensome for him.
  • Communications will start to be telematic between the issuing entities and the National Institute of Social Security (hereinafter INSS).
  • With the new regularization, medical review periods may be reduced, i.e., in any temporary disability process, the physicians of the Public Health Service, of the collaborating company or mutual insurance company, may set medical review periods that are shorter than those indicated in the previous regulation, subject to the evolution of the process.

On the other hand, there are issues that will not change, such as the sick leave and confirmation medical reports, which will be extended according to the period of duration estimated by the physician, in accordance with, among others, the following criteria:

If the process is estimated to last less than 5 calendar days, the physician must issue the sick leave and discharge report in the same medical act. This does not imply that from the same day that the sick leave is issued, the discharge report is issued without any other alternative for the patient, but rather that an estimate is made and the patient's discharge is fixed, during which the disabled worker may request a medical examination on the day the medical discharge has been stipulated.

For processes with an estimated duration between 5 and 30 calendar days, the physician shall issue a sick leave report, stipulating the date of medical review, which in no case shall exceed 7 calendar days from the date of sick leave.

But after all this brief explanation of the employee's position, we are left with the question of what position the company will be in after this reform.

Knowing that the public health service or mutual insurance company will send the data contained in the medical reports to the INSS, the latter will be responsible for communicating to the companies the merely administrative identification data related to the medical reports, at the latest, on the first working day following the day it is received.

Companies are obliged to transmit to the INSS through the RED system (Electronic Data Remittance), immediately, within a maximum of 3 working days, counting from the receipt of the medical leave notification, the data determined by ministerial order.

We must take into account that employees who fall within the professional group of Household Employees and Seafarers, among others, are not obliged to join the Network System.

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This Thursday, October 6, we held a meeting in Madrid together with Deustalks under the title: Trends in Human Resources in 2023: work in the future.

On this occasion, there was a round table discussion moderated by our partner in the consulting area, Teresa Areizaga, with the participation of Sandra Escobedo from management and development of Kutxabank, the director of human resources of the VASCO Group, José Pascual, and Isabel Emparan, director of HR services of Econocom Spain.

We were able to talk about the arrival of new technologies and new generations, the great change in the labor market, and the new needs demanded by workers, such as family reconciliation, or greater autonomy, which forces companies to demand well-trained and honest people profiles. Without forgetting the attraction and retention of talent or the great challenges that companies face in terms of human resources.

Below you can find the recording of the session.

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Disciplinary dismissal for absences from work after a long employment relationship without the dismissal being challenged. Fraud of law. Allegation by the Public Employment Service that the worker was not legally unemployed.

The judicial challenge of the dismissal is not a legal requirement to access unemployment benefits. The cause of the dismissal was the repeated absence of the worker from her job, which, undoubtedly, constituted a conduct only attributable to her; but this cannot be qualified as a deliberate intention to lose her job, since all disciplinary dismissals respond to the serious and culpable conduct of the worker, without the disciplinary dismissal being outside the legal concept of unemployment. Although it is suspicious that only 2 days after the dismissal the worker signed the lease contract for the premises where she was to work as a hairdresser, not being impossible to find suitable premises and arrange the lease in only 2 days, but when that short period is surrounded by the uncontested disciplinary dismissal and the claim for the single payment of unemployment benefits, the situation is, at least, suspicious and this justifies the legitimate attempts of the State Public Employment Service to defend the legality and to prevent it from being deceived. Even so, however, it cannot go beyond suspicion, since the facts formally took place within the legality (TSJPV 2/11/2021).

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We live in a very changing and demanding environment, with health, technological, inclusive, environmental challenges and geopolitical tensions that were unimaginable just two years ago. This situation of difficulty and survival causes profound changes in the configuration of essential functions of its management and specifically in the way of leading the present without losing the vision of the future.

And what are those key skills that are essential for effective leadership today?

Doing this is not easy and requires mastery of a wide range of leadership skills to build agile organizations with resilient employees and achieve higher performance.