Unemployed running out of benefits and help

The Balearics was last year the community with the lowest rating in terms of protection for workers whose unemployment benefits had run out.Workers in the tourism sector were the worse  affected by the lack of government support.
Seven out of every ten workers, representing 95,000 people, struggled to make ends meet, since their unemployment benefit ran out. Many of  those working in tourism were the most affected because  they failed to work the necessary time the previous year to renew their  benefit claim.
The Balearic support system in these situations was rated last year as the worst, 29.3 percent less effective, than the national average.
According to a study revealed yesterday by the University of the Balearics, the “protection tax” to help those in such situations has been declining progressively since 2011.
“Back in 2009, the government still managed to help over 40 percent of citizens in long term unemployment,” a leading economics professor from the university said.
“It rose over the following two years and slumped again in 2011, and it’s now 12.4 percent lower than then.
“It looks like the ‘apparently good tourism seasons’ are not being reflected in the amount of protection given by the state to workers in these sort of extreme situations.