Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2013. It reports the Spanish Ministry of Employment’s plan to pay private placement agencies up to 3,000 euros per jobseeker placed, from a 200 million euro budget; the amounts and conditions are those reported at the time.
I read it and I can’t believe it. The government’s latest initiative is to reward private employment agencies with up to €3,000 for every worker they place in a company. The Ministry of Employment has set aside up to €200 million to be shared among placement agencies, according to ElDiario.es.
“The amounts the agencies receive will be higher the older the unemployed person is and the longer they have been out of work. So, for placing a young person aged up to 29 who has been unemployed for 3 to 6 months, agencies can earn €300. The amount rises if the person has been out of work for more than two years: in that case they would receive €1,850. For a person aged 30 to 44 who has been unemployed for one to two years, the reward would be €1,250. The maximum incentive is the one paid for placing people aged 45 or over who have been unemployed for more than two years: €3,000.”
With all due respect to these placement agencies, they are still middlemen charging for someone else’s work. Given current wages in Spain, if an agency places a worker over 45 in a company for six months, it is ironic that the agency will collect a bonus or reward worth practically half of what that unemployed person will earn over those six months of employment.
With credit so scarce in our country, that money should be the reward for companies that hire unemployed people. That way we would be encouraging hiring and motivating companies to take people on, instead of throwing public money at private intermediaries who, in my view, are unnecessary. Because, and I insist, with all due respect, these agencies are basically the equivalent of the “pimp” in prostitution, who takes a commission for a service another person provides to a client. I don’t understand why that is illegal in prostitution but legitimate in the labour market.
Don’t you think it would be better to give that money to the companies that hire, rather than to these middlemen? I ask in all seriousness, because I may be missing something, and there may be something positive about this initiative somewhere.
See also: Out of ideas and in debt, Spain taxes the sun (Forbes mocks Spain’s handling of renewables)
Featured image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
