90,000 valid lay-off requests made

Social Security has so far validated 90,000 requests from companies to join the simplified lay-off scheme, covering 735,000 workers, announced the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho.

The figures were advanced by the government official following a request submitted by the PAN political party, on the “rejection of requests to join the simplified lay-off” regime due to Social Security failures”.
The total value of the cases amounts to €284 million and the average response time for requests by Social Security is 16 days, the minister reaffirmed, stressing the “enormous effort” of Social Security workers who “work seven days a week to be able to respond”.

The minister said that until 15 May, 83,324 lay-off requests had been paid and that, in the meantime, around 6,000 cases were corrected, with 5,400 with debts to Social Security or the Tax Authority and about 4,000 “with no eligibility conditions”.
Ana Mendes Godinho stated that “the option was to reuse all the processes” and contact the companies to correct them, namely by paying their debts, and to be entitled to support, with an “automatic reprocessing” of the ‘lay-off’ request, without the need to deliver a new request.