Temporary employment regulation (ERTO) proceedings have already affected 7,370 people in Girona in the last two weeks. The Department of Labor made public yesterday the data corresponding to the accumulated from 16 to 28 October, a period that coincides with the beginning of the restrictions of the Generalitat and to which is added the declaration of the state of alarm by the Spanish Government and the measures that the Catalan government has been implementing in recent days to stop the advance of the pandemic.
In all this time the new guidelines, such as the closure of bars, restaurants and other businesses, have forced companies in the province to declare 1,330 ERTOs in just over ten days.
The balance of the last week is very similar to that of the first seven days with exceptional measures. Thus, from 22 to 28 October the temporary files were 672 (44 more than during the first week, an increase of 7%), and those affected were 3,770, ie 4.6% more than in the first count with about 140 cases.
Despite the growing number of cases, the figures are slightly lower than those given during the total confinement in March. In a similar period of time (from 13 to 27 March) there were 5,951 files in Girona that affected 38,939 workers.
The new restrictions in Catalonia continue to cause an increase in the number of people who are in an ERTO, and there are already 68,350. In the same period, 9,711 new cases were registered, most of them due to forced closure or impediment (6,499), followed by those of traditional force majeure and limitation (3,104) and those of economic causes (168). Disability ERTOs affect 37,241 people, limitation ERTOs 27,602 and economic causes 3,507 workers.
On October 16, the government forced bars and restaurants to lower the shutter to contain coronavirus infections, which has added new workers to ERTOs, the mechanism generally used by companies to deal with covid- 19.
In this line, the new restrictions on mobility, which came into force on Friday, threaten to further increase these figures in the coming days, as other economic sectors such as culture and sports will be added to the inactivity.