The inspectors of the Ministry of Labour will concentrate on the cases in which hiring has been detected after the declaration of the state of alarm.
The labour inspectorate is investigating nearly a thousand Canarian companies for possible cases of fraud with temporary employment regulation (ERTE) files during the coronavirus pandemic. According to information provided by the Ministry of Labour, Migration and Social Security, the inspectors are focusing their efforts on cases in which suspicious movements of workers have been detected. Specifically, in exactly 976 businesses that are in the Islands under the magnifying glass of state officials, out of a total of more than 26,000 throughout the islands, new hires have been found after the declaration of the state of alarm. However, the number of cases will surely increase from now on, since the investigations began very recently (in May) and it takes at least several weeks to complete the analysis of each case.
ERTEs are fundamental for the survival of tens of thousands of companies throughout Spain, therefore, also to avoid hundreds of thousands of layoffs. Even more so in the Archipelago, by far the Autonomous Community hardest hit by the halt in tourist activity, which represents around 40% of its GDP. Around 30,000 businesses have benefited from ERTE in the Canary Islands since March 14th, when the national alarm started, the vast majority due to force majeure. This type of ERTE, which the Ministry of Labour created ad hoc to avoid the collapse of the national productive fabric, it involves exemptions and / or bonuses in the payments of companies to Social Security, in addition to a series of benefits for the affected employees. This is the reason that the inspectors are investigating, above all, cases of entities that have enjoyed or are enjoying these exemptions or bonuses in social contributions and that, paradoxically, have discharged workers after the state of alarm has been decreed. In short, fictitious workers to benefit more from the ERTE.
This includes employees in suspension of activity who actually continue to work in black in the same company up to people hired on a precarious basis to replace the employees in ERTE, or also workers who are on a reduced working day but who are obliged to work full time. Or simply people who are put on payroll to collect from public coffers for the duration of the ERTE. "The actions began in May, and given the dynamics of the inspections (planning, visit to the company, contribution and examination of labour and social security documentation and, where appropriate, preparation of reports and minutes), several weeks for its completion, "point from the Ministry led by Yolanda Díaz. At the moment, of the 976 files under investigation in the Autonomous Community, officials have already shelved 63, while the remaining 913 continue to be processed.
Of the 976 inspection reports, the vast majority, a total of 660, were made to companies in the province of Las Palmas, only 302 recorded in the demarcation of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Thus, practically seven out of ten suspected cases of fraud with ERTE, exactly 68%, have occurred in businesses in Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. It should be noted, however, that in the eastern peripheral islands, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, there are more companies than in La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. In other words: this apparent imbalance does not necessarily imply that the fraud ring is greater in the province of Las Palmas, not at least in relative terms.
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