SEPE’s help to the self-employed: this is how they can collect unemployment while they work

Unemployment is the most complicated situation for a worker. If he meets the requirements, he will be able to collect unemployment, a contributory benefit that serves as a lifeline to cover him financially in that period without pay until he finds a new job. An aid that, in addition, can be maintained if this worker decides to be self-employed, that is, to become autonomous.

The Public State Employment Service (SEPE) states that a self-employed person who registers and was receiving unemployment after becoming unemployed has the option of continuing to collect the benefit during the first months of his new activity as a self-employed worker.

This aid is conceived as a relief for the economic situation of the self-employed in that first stage, more susceptible to suffering losses, since it is the one in which the business starts up and in which, traditionally, the income takes time to arrive.

To achieve this, the self-employed must ask to make the strike compatible with their activity within a period of 15 days from the start of it. If he does, he will be able to collect the benefit for a maximum period of 270 days or, if less, for the period he has left. Only what corresponds to IRPF will be deducted, but the Social Security contribution will not be deducted.

The SEPE reports that the self-employed who register as “partners of newly created labor companies or working partners of newly created associated work cooperatives” are also entitled to this benefit, although if they start an activity part-time or full-time employed by others will stop receiving unemployment benefits immediately.

What freelancers can’t do it

It is not the only circumstance in which the self-employed would lose the right to collect unemployment while carrying out their activity. The SEPE includes a series of incompatibilities:

-The self-employed who enter a newly created associated work cooperative or newly created labor company without registering with Social Security.

-The self-employed who register to join as partners of a commercial company.

-The self-employed who register and whose last job was self-employed.

-The self-employed who have already benefited from this right in the 24 months prior to the application.

-The self-employed who have benefited from the single unemployment payment in the 24 months prior to the application.

-The self-employed who, when registering, sign a contract with the employer or employer for whom they had worked as an employee immediately before the legal situation of unemployment, or with a company of the same business group.