Employers’ association that brings ceramic manufacturers together, Ascer, the aid package for the most affected sectors energy crisis and war in ukraine “clearly Insufficient to protect the industry”, The main province is industry, which represents 12% of industrial employment in the Community and It represents 18% of the total employment in Castellón. “The approved text, doubts about its application and suffers certain uncertainty creating uncertainty in companies at a time when the economy needs the opposite,” they add.
The Royal Decree Law, published Wednesday in the BOE and presented Tuesday following the Cabinet meeting, Products containing intense gas, such as ceramics, may be eligible for direct assistance of up to 125 million Euros. After applying for the small print of the approved document, The maximum amount each company can choose is 400,000 Euros., at the rate of 5,000 Euros for each worker. “a number It is insignificant if we take into account that the monthly average natural gas bill for the last period may be around two million euros. The average number of employees in the sector is 103, but we should not forget that we have large companies that are much higher than this number, as well as SMEs, and they will also be penalized.”
the general secretary of the organization, Alberto Echavarría said from the industry that “we expected a stronger response and with more measures left in the pipeline, measures, such as lowering gas tolls, lifting hydrocarbon taxes, or lifting moratoriums on payments to companies affected by the energy crisis, all aimed at providing liquidity to companies so that they can sustain production and employment.” “The European Commission has paved the way for overwhelming aid by allowing up to 50 million aid to companies affected by energy costs. euros per company. From the industry we claim That the Spanish Government has allocated sufficient funds so that the assistance offered reaches the maximum allowable. “There is no point in the commission collecting up to 50 million in aid, and in Spain only up to 400,000 euros per company is provided,” he says.
Electric
Government decisions provide greater action to reduce electricity costs; this is something that companies dedicated to ceramics can indirectly benefit from. According to the calculations of the Tile Workers Union, “There will be a 36% discount in electricity prices in terms of both electricity and energy. According to the sectoral information we have, “Electricity charges can make up about 50% of the fixed part of the bill for our companies.”
In addition, “established 80% electricity toll discount for electro-intensive industries, many companies in the ceramic tile manufacturing sector are not included in the electro-intensive regulation, therefore they could not use this helpline. “Given the definition of the electro-intensive sector in Europe, our entire industry could benefit from this toll reduction measure.”
business decisions
One of the points where Ascer shows his disappointment is dismissal ban, In case the company justifies the measure due to the energy crisis and the situation in the East. “The general prohibition of dismissal for objective reasons related to the occupation of Ukraine, applied to any company that applied to ERTE to get out of the crisis, is absolutely regrettable. The most likely outcome would be: companies directly apply for layoffs”, detail from the employers’ association.
impact on employment
Since the beginning of the year, many ceramic companies have started their temporary employment regulation files. Ascer lays out an approach to explaining the impact of the current crisis: “If we estimate that ERTEs mainly affect line workers and that they currently represent about 60% of the workforce at the sectoral level, talking about More than 40% of production workers were affected”. According to data from the workgroup, there are 27 files with a total of 3,930 employees affected. To them we must add about 200 more people working on atomizers.
On the other hand, gasIndustrial, Representing some of the main consumer companies of this energy material—among them some of the most important in the Castellón tile cluster—he points out: government measures are “positive but clearly insufficient”, because they “exclude severely affected sectors”. According to this entity, “Government Aware that the price of gas for industry is multiplied by five, and at one point it has even gone up to ten times the average historical price since the organized market came into operation. Given the high gas costs that industries have to bear, the European Commission has empowered Member States to provide assistance in the form of direct subsidies, setting criteria and eligible costs.