Activating the unemployed through Sociedades Laborales in Spain

Spanish Sociedades Laborales (SLs) – mostly small and micro enterprises – are a qualified form of conventional corporation, majority-owned by their permanent employees. Unemployed persons can capitalise their unemployment benefits as a lump sum to start a new SL or to recapitalise an existing SL by joining it. This makes SLs similar to start-up subsidies for the unemployed, an established instrument of active labour market policy across the EU. The new 2015 Law on Worker-Owned and Participatory Companies substantially modernised the concept of SLs 30 years after its inception.
SLs provide an unemployed person who joins or sets up an SL not only with access to capital but with business and entrepreneurial mentoring and practical expertise. These enterprises also play an important role in job creation and expanding secondary employment. They are based on employee ownership whose demonstrated benefits complement the policy aims of ALMPs. While there are no obstacles to transfering the Sociedad Laboral to other Member States, the model has important benefits that make it particularly suitable for combination with existing national start-up incentives for the unemployed.
This report investigates the potential of SLs as an instrument of ALMP for returning the unemployed to the labor market and also the transferability of the scheme to other EU Member States.