CONTRACTED EMPLOYEES who lose their jobs can still claim unemployment benefit while doing other work on green receipts.
Under new government guidelines, which came into force on January 3, those made unemployed from contracted full-time or part-time work can still work on green receipts and receive unemployment subsidies providing their receipts do not exceed 50 per cent of the minimum salary.
These new rules mean that applicants have to submit a declaration of all their stated income at both social security and employment centres as an independent freelance worker.
In cases where the employee sees his or her contract rescinded as part of ‘an amicable agreement’ between employer and employee, the receipt of unemployment benefit from the state while working on green receipts will depend on government unemployment quotas for the given company in a given year.
Green receipts
In other words if companies hire and fire on a casual contractual basis with the knowledge of the employee – depending on business and trade demand – the employee may be penalised and considered as if he or she were an independent worker on green receipts carrying out services on a basis of need.
In cases where an employer lays off a contacted member of staff over and above the agreed quota in an ‘amicable agreement’ Social Security may make the employer liable under the law to pay the unemployment benefit in its totality for the period corresponding to the initial phase of unemployment. Previously the state would match like-for-like.
The mechanism has been introduced to dissuade companies from hiring staff on short term project management programmes on contracts having agreed beforehand with the employee to lay them off at a later date when business slackens or the project has been completed.
Under the new legislation the right to unemployment benefit can be automatically suspended if the employee is absent from national territory, they must be able to prove they exercised a professional activity for over three months.
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