SEPE: Cases in which unemployment can be collected while on leave

Susana Zamora

Caring for a family member, studies or another professional project are some of the reasons that push many workers, with a minimum seniority in the company of one year, to request a voluntary leave of absence. No one guarantees you to return to your same job, but you do have a preferential right to re-entry when there is a free place in the same category.

Starting an entrepreneurial initiative or working for another company can take months or years away from the worker from their initial job. Therefore, the question arises whether it is possible to collect unemployment benefits during the time that you are absent from your company.

From the outset, the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) is clear in this regard: «If, when moving to the situation of voluntary leave in his company, a worker requests unemployment benefit, he will be denied because he does not have a legal unemployment situation. ».

However, he qualifies that statement when that same worker decides to work for a company other than his own and ends his contract for reasons beyond his control.

In this case, if you applied for unemployment, you could be entitled to this benefit if the voluntary leave had not ended when the legal situation of unemployment occurred. That is, if the duration of the benefit exceeds that of the leave of absence, he will collect the benefit until said leave of absence ends. At that time the benefit will be suspended, since he must request his reincorporation to the company and wait for his response. If the company finds it impossible to accept reincorporation due to a lack of adequate vacancy, or denies it at that time, you may continue to receive the unemployment benefit until the date of reincorporation into the company or until the benefit ends.

He will therefore be able to continue receiving unemployment benefits, but he has to prove to the Public Employment Service that he has asked to join his job, providing the company document in which he rejects that possibility at that time.

You could also be entitled to unemployment if the term of the voluntary leave had already passed when the worker requests the unemployment benefit or the duration of the leave was for an indefinite period. In this case, it is mandatory to first request re-entry into the company. As long as the company does not respond, it is not possible to resolve the application for unemployment benefits, "because they do not have a legal unemployment situation," clarifies the SEPE. A different situation would be if the company responds that it cannot be reincorporated at that time. Then, you would already have a legal unemployment situation and the benefit request could be resolved.