More than 1.8 million unpaid interns have already contributed to Social Security | Economy | EUROtoday

Almost two million folks have already contributed to Social Security throughout their coaching internship durations regardless of not having a payroll. The variety of girls, a couple of million, far exceeds the variety of males, 790,000. The sum of each brings the full variety of unpaid scholarship holders who’ve accessed this proper to 1.81 million within the two years that this scheme has been in power. This is evident from the information offered to EL PAÍS by Social Security, which works from January 1, 2024 (the day from which unpaid interns contribute) to December 9, 2025. These durations depend in direction of the long run retirement of college college students and in addition of Vocational Training college students.

This enchancment for interns was agreed within the first a part of the pension reform, with the assist of each unions and employers. Scholarship holders who obtain monetary compensation have been contributing since 2011 – a measure permitted by the socialist authorities of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – however these whose internships weren’t paid didn’t.

Eva Alcón, president of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE) and rector of the Universitat Jaume I, of Castellón, believes that these information “reveal the real magnitude of unpaid training internships in our country and the relevance of the measure adopted in 2024 to guarantee Social Security contributions for student trainees.”

The president of the rectors considers that the contribution of unpaid scholarship holders is a “relevant advance in terms of rights and social protection, especially at a key stage of academic training and the transition to the labor market.” The Youth Council additionally makes a optimistic evaluation and believes that the contribution “corrects a historical anomaly, that activities with schedules, responsibilities and organizational dependency did not generate any future rights.” This platform, made up of greater than 60 youth entities, emphasizes that coaching practices “also generate value.”

It is a mirrored image just like that of the unions. “Exceeding 1.8 million registrations since January 2024 shows that the inclusion of scholarship recipients in the Social Security system was not only a fair demand, but a structural need with which to improve the labor insertion of young students,” says Belén Guirao, common secretary of the UGT youth affiliation (RUGE). He believes that the “establishment of rights and responsibilities for both parties” generates an atmosphere “of greater legal security for the productive fabric.”

The Youth Secretary of CC OO, Pau Garcia, additionally focuses on the proportion of ladies who’ve already contributed for his or her coaching practices, 56% of the full (there are 1.02 million, in comparison with 790,000 males). “They are serving as a tool for equality when entering the labor market,” displays this union member. The president of the rectors elaborates on this concept: “The fact that more than half of the beneficiaries are women shows the importance of these policies from a perspective of equity and reduction of structural inequalities.”

The proportion of scholarship recipients who’ve contributed to Social Security with out cost is according to the disaggregation by intercourse of college training and Vocational Training. In the primary case, they symbolize 56.8% (1.04 million out of 1.83) and within the second the scholars are 46.3% (527,000 out of 1.14 million). Thus, they’re 53% of the full and symbolize 56% of the unpaid college or vocational coaching scholarship holders who’ve already contributed.

The Youth Council believes that this 56% “highlights a feminization of the most precarious forms of entry into the labor market.” “This pattern,” provides the platform, “is not coincidental and points to structural inequalities in job placement itineraries.” From UGT they level out the danger that “given the same training and the same training itinerary, dynamics develop where men access an employment contract sooner while women stay longer chaining scholarships or internships.” At the identical time, Guirao believes that the contribution “combats the gap in future pensions and benefits from day one of your contact with the company.”

This contribution hardly entails prices for the general public or non-public entity that receives the college pupil, since it’s 95% backed by Social Security. For Vocational Training practices, the Ministry of Education assumes the remaining 5%. In the college universities, it was supposed that the general public or non-public firm that hosted the scholarship recipient would pay, however the door was left open for the schools to imagine it if the receiving entity didn’t need to. As the schools have been denouncing, they’re those who virtually at all times assume this price.

An evaluation by this newspaper after the primary month of utility of the measure confirmed that the majority public firms, regardless of the financial hardships they endure, are those that pay the remaining 5%. All in all, it’s a tiny price, a most of 10 euros per pupil per 30 days. Hence, universities don’t focus their grievance on the fee, of some thousand euros per 30 days in universities with extra college students, however on the executive burden it entails.

The president of the CRUE emphasizes that the college system “needs certainty and sufficient resources to be able to continue guaranteeing quality practices” and that this requires “correct coordination between administrations, universities and collaborating entities, as well as adequate financing that does not transfer disproportionate burdens to universities.”

The information now offered by Social Security enable us to attract the conclusion that within the final 12 months (from December 13, 2024 to December 9, 2025) there have been 885,562 new registrations of unpaid scholarship holders, in comparison with the 925,266 that occurred from January 1, 2024 to December 12, 2024.

Scholarship Statute

Garcia, the consultant of CC OO, believes that this quantity of pupil interns who’ve accessed the quote “demonstrates that the conspiracy warnings from the CRUE and the CEOE are false, there has been no end to the internship due to the quote.” “With 1.81 million registrations in Social Security, it is demonstrated that the system has absorbed the measure with total normality, thanks to a responsible productive fabric that values talent above a minimum contribution to social protection,” provides the consultant of UGT, who sees within the “success” of the measure proof that “the dignity of the students was not a threat to their training, but a right that could not wait any longer; that fear of the CRUE and CEOE actually hid the resistance to abandon a free labor model.”

Both union representatives believe that the script will be repeated regarding the status of the intern, a rule agreed upon by the Ministry of Labor and the unions that aims to compensate for the expenses of students on internships and limit extracurricular internships (those that concentrate the most precariousness). CEOE and the university rectors did not sign the agreement, nor did the socialist part of the Government originally, which has delayed the arrival of the text to the Council of Ministers for more than two years.

The Executive gave a first approval to the norm on November 4, waiting for the norm to return to the cabinet for a second reading before facing Parliament. It has very few options to prosper, like the majority of projects that Yolanda Díaz presents to the right-wing majority in Congress.

The Youth Council sees it as essential for this regulation to become a reality: “These information power us to ask ourselves what number of of those individuals are truly scholarship recipients and what number of are performing capabilities typical of a job, which reinforces the significance of getting a Scholarship Statute that clearly delimits each areas.”

UGT and CC OO ask the parliamentary groups to endorse the agreement, while the CRUE insists that the text being negotiated in Parliament does not have the endorsement of business or the rectors. “We should work to succeed in an settlement with the completely different establishments of the general public sector, the enterprise sector and third sector entities to have the ability to adjust to these new obligations, together with establishing prematurely the important public financing. All of this with the goal of guaranteeing the continuity of practices,” says Alcón.