Unemployment skyrockets in Spain’s holiday islands Ibiza and Mallorca under coronavirus crisis lockdown

UNEMPLOYMENT in the Balearic Islands has skyrocketed in April under the coronavirus crisis lockdown.
SEPE state employment officers registered more than 92,000 requests for benefits for the jobless over the first 23 days of the month. This represents a whopping 1,100 per cent increase on the figure of just over 7,700 for the same period last year.
The state agency has reportedly said it is working as fast as possible to ensure that as many as those who now find themselves out of work will be able to get their payment at the beginning of May.
According to Spanish press reports nearly 80,500 of the unemployment benefit applications are workers affected by ERTEs, that is, a temporary employment regulation which enables companies to make suspensions within employment contracts or reduce working hours due to force majeure.
It was also reported that the Balearic Island SEPE offices are assuming that the number of ERTEs will continue to go up, pointing to regional Employment Minister Iago Negueruela’s estimation that the will affect some 200,000 employees in the archipelago in all.