Updates to the PICE program for youth employment

The Chamber of Commerce offers companies the Comprehensive Qualification and Employment Program (Programa Integral de Cualificación y Empleo, PICE), a program designed to meet companies’ needs when hiring employees whose education, training, and professional qualifications match the position to be filled.

The program also includes advisory services to improve companies’ current situation.

Under this aid scheme, companies are offered €4,950 for each contract signed (with a minimum term of six months). In addition, aid of €1,800 is offered for setting up a business, subject to a minimum registration period of 12 months for the Business Activities Tax (IAE) and in the Special Social Security Scheme for Self-Employed Workers (Régimen Especial de Trabajadores Autónomos).

Requirements for accessing PICE aid

The aid is available to all companies, self-employed workers, private non-profit entities, joint ownership arrangements (comunidades de bienes) and civil partnerships (sociedades civiles), foundations, federations, or confederations that meet the following requirements:

• Hiring young people under 30 registered in the Youth Guarantee program (Garantía Juvenil).

• The types of subsidized contracts are permanent, temporary, training, and internship contracts.

• Full-time contracts.

• Minimum contract term of 6 months.

• Maintaining the level of employment during the first 6 months.

• The young people hired must not have had an employment relationship with the same company in the previous 6 months (except in the case of non-employment internships, or prácticas no laborales).

• If the worker leaves for reasons not attributable to the company, the worker must be replaced within 10 days by another worker under the same conditions on which the aid was applied for. If the reasons are attributable to the company, the company may not replace the worker and must repay the aid.

Compatibility with other aid

The training contract is compatible with the PICE aid. The 100% relief (bonificación) on Social Security contributions (75% if the company has more than 250 employees) and the 100% relief for training applied to social security contributions may be combined with the €4,950 aid.

Applications

You can apply for this aid if you hire a young person who meets the above requirements and whose contract starts no later than December 31, 2021.

Once the contract has been signed, you must submit the application online through the Chamber of Commerce’s e-office (sede electrónica).

Exclusions

• Companies found liable for a dismissal declared unfair (despido improcedente) in the previous 6 months.

• Not being up to date with tax and Social Security obligations.

• Hiring of the spouse and relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity.

• Hiring by temporary employment agencies (Empresas de Trabajo Temporal, ETT) and by the public administration.

• In the case of a legal entity or an entity under the income attribution regime (entidad en régimen de atribución de rentas), participation as a partner, co-owner, or similar is excluded where it is limited to capital contributions.

• Having been convicted by final judgment, or penalized, for tolerating employment practices considered discriminatory.

• Hiring of young people who had been linked to the company in the six months prior to the signing of the contract.

• Hiring that involves worker members or labor partners of Social Economy enterprises.

• Falling within any of the circumstances set out in Article 13.2 of Law 38/2003, of November 17.

Check with your Chamber of Commerce beforehand; they will tell you whether funds are still available, since the award of the aid will depend on the budget allocation for each province. Requirements and conditions may vary from one Chamber of Commerce to another.