Boom to Bust in Marbella Spain as Businesses Collapse and Throw the Towel In

By Tony Winterburn • Published: 20 Mar 2020 • 17:17

EVEN MARBELLA, PLAYGROUND TO THE RICH AND FAMOUS ISNT IMMUNE TO THE EFFECTS OF THE WORLDWIDE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC.

Apart from the Coronavirus crisis, there is a Finacial crisis sweeping through the coast and no one is immune to its effects. Marbella is eerily quiet which means tills are not ringing, restaurants and eateries are closed, even the Taxi taxi drivers in Peurto Banus anxiously wait at the roadside for potential fares, but they simply are not there.

It hasn’t been a week since the emergency lockdown was announced and already some businesses have pulled their shutters down for the last time. The problems are compounded by the fact that last year was not that great and as usual the winter even worse.

The Ministry of Employment said in a recent announcement that are overwhelmed with applications for the so-called”ERTE” which bring light relief to some workers but not enough for business to survive on.

The Andalusian Government, through the Employment Ministry, continues to receive an avalanche of applications from ERTE (Temporary Employment Regulation Files), which means the suspension of the job for a certain period, during that time the worker receives unemployment benefit.

Peurto Banus, can it recover from the crisis?

If we do a purely mathematical extrapolation, the 1,626 files accounted for today would correspond to almost 20,000 workers. And that’s only in three days. At this rate, the figure at the end of the week will be staggering.

In addition, it must be taken into account that there are ERTEs applied for at the state level and that, although they are mainly in Madrid, they affect the whole region. They are from large companies, so they affect more workers.

As we heard earlier, very large companies like Burger King, Zara, and Primark have all closed down temporarily and applied for ERTEs, no one can escape the crisis.

The Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, put the total between 400 and 500 the files at the national level that are currently “inline” at the General Directorate of Labour. “It is an overwhelming number,” Díaz summarized.