To be entitled to unemployment benefits in Spain, you must generally be resident in Spain, be legally unemployed and have paid unemployment contributions for at least 360 days during the previous 6 years. It should be noted that the unemployment situation must not have been caused voluntarily by the employee. If you resign from your job voluntarily, you are generally not entitled to unemployment benefits.
Sooner or later, many employees will face this situation during their working life: they are dismissed from their job. In order to respond correctly at this critical moment, particularly with regard to outstanding salary and severance payments, it is advisable to take the following points into account.
In Spain, there are two main ways of working. You can either work as an employee (por cuenta ajena) or be self-employed (por cuenta propia or autónomo). German nationals, like all other EU citizens, are subject to the same conditions as Spanish nationals and must therefore meet the same requirements.
This article addresses questions concerning the employee's prior hearing in disciplinary dismissals. Although the employee's right to a hearing is provided for in Article 7 of ILO Convention No. 158 (International Labour Organization), it had not been applied in Spain until the recent ruling of our Supreme Court in its judgment of 18 November 2024.
In recent years, numerous websites have emerged offering foreign companies an attractive proposition: “Hire employees in Spain without setting up a local entity.” These platforms, often referred to as “Employer of Record (EOR),” “Global Employment,” “International Payroll” or “Remote Hiring,” act as intermediaries. Formally, the employee is employed by a local entity (the platform or one of its partners), while the foreign company ultimately organises and directs the work.
This article examines the issues surrounding collective dismissals and addresses the main questions that commonly arise in this context. One of the key questions is when a dismissal qualifies as a collective dismissal and what legal obligations this entails for the employer.
A disguised employment relationship, also known as false self-employment, arises when a person who should legally be employed as an employee is instead required by the company to register under the Spanish Special Scheme for Self-Employed Workers (Régimen Especial de Trabajadores Autónomos – RETA) and, consequently, to pay their own self-employment social security contributions.
Although fixed-term employment contracts in Spain are only permitted in certain duly justified circumstances, a large proportion of employment relationships have traditionally been entered into through fixed-term contracts, known as “contratos temporales”. Where such contracts are used fraudulently or abusively, the employment relationship may be deemed permanent.
This article is intended to clarify the most important questions for both employers wishing to register domestic staff and employees who intend to take up employment in a private household.
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