Foment del Treball demands from the new Government policies to generate growth and quality employment
Once the new members of the Government of President Pedro Sánchez are known, Foment del Treball demands the new Executive that activates “the economic policies necessary to encourage economic growth, strengthen the productive economy and create quality jobs“, taking into account the context of economic slowdown, both in Spain and in the European Union.
For the Catalan employers, one of the priorities has to be weave broad agreements that seek to improve employment, alleviate the fall in family incomes and guarantee sustained growth in the immediate future and based on productivity improvement.
Foment recalls the key points that it already included in its July document with 370 measures to articulate an Economic and Social Agenda before the general elections.
Thus, the employers’ association chaired by Josep Sánchez Llibre asks the public powers to favor the creation of a climate of institutional stability and a framework of legal security, for social cohesion and also to achieve return of Catalan companies that changed their headquarters in 2017.
Furthermore, the Catalan employers demand a new perspective on the figure of the entrepreneur and the social contribution of the company, avoiding any type of attack or disqualification.
Once again, Foment demands a competitive taxation at the service of productive investment, company merger processes (to bring the median size of the Spanish company closer to the European average) and job creation. “Taxes such as the Wealth Tax or the Great Wealth Tax do not help make us competitive, and we must become homogenized with the EU where these taxes do not exist,” she emphasizes.
At the same time, he claims that a major agreement is needed in the Cortes Generales that defines a plan of infrastructure investments that generates certainties and sets priorities. “We also understand the education and vocational training as investments in the future of our society and continue to be a pending issue,” they point out.
A key issue for social cohesion and economic revitalization is to confront the access to housingwhether purchasing or renting, as a priority of the administrations, but “with viable and realistic proposals, and not excessively ideological laws that do not solve, quite the oppositethe situation”.
Another element is the modernization of the public sector as an “unavoidable aspect”. Foment emphasizes that “efficiency must be improved, duplication and absurd procedures must be avoided.” Likewise, it urges to influence the deepening of the public-private collaborationand that “the treatment of the European funds“Their management must be improved so that they reach companies on time, and managed with total transparency.”
On the other hand, it calls for pursuing sustainable development objectives fairly and matching the objectives to the real possibilities of companies.
Regarding spending on pensions“by constantly increasing the social contributions of companies, which are among the highest in Europe and which are a true tax on the creation and maintenance of employment, the viability of the system is put at risk.”
And the employers’ association also highlights “a cardinal issue for the Catalan and Spanish economy: It is time to make a industrial policy with capital lettersfacilitating the installation, creation and development of industrial activity.” In this section, it emphasizes that dialogue and dialogue between the affected sectors is relevant and urgent.
