The international economic crises coupled with the national crisis in the construction sector are producing a serious impact on the Spanish economy. It has its highest expression in the very high level of unemployed people, which is over 17 per cent of the workforce.
 
The National Statistics Institute (INE) published that the number of people receiving benefits has increased from one million persons in the previous year to more than 2.5 million persons in May 2009. The government transferred nearly 17.000 million euros to the Public Employment Service that together with the already budget planned for 2009 allows the agency to cover benefits without incurring a deficit.

The government adopted a stimulus package with more than 90 measures and four basic lines: supporting businesses and families, employment, financial and budgetary measures and measures to modernize the economy. All of them are in the Plan E. Plan E is a fiscal effort of more than two per cent of GDP, with a budget of more than 50,000 million euros

At the request of the trade unions and due to the difficult economic situation and the problems in finding a job, the government has recently approved an unemployment scheme for the protection and inclusion of the unemployed. The budget for this program is 640 million euros which will allow unemployed people with an income of less than 75 per cent of the minimum wage to receive an allowance of € 420 per month for six months. It is extendable by another six months if the unemployment rate exceeds 17 per cent.

The crisis has forced the government to take a great number of measures aimed to decrease the destruction of employment and change an economic model heavily dependent upon residential construction with high levels of external deficit. On the other hand, it has to be noted that the active social policies increase social protection and attempt to prevent the economic crisis from affecting the current levels of social cohesion.

• The impact of the crisis
• Challenges to social security systems
• Crisis response
• Social Security responses
• Conclusions

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