Pending early retirement

The new mechanism to grant early retirement to workers in the most difficult professions has not been released. Almost a year and a half after the measure was approved, and announced, in the Council of Ministers, the result is a monumental traffic jam in the Ministry of Social Security. The department headed by Elma Saiz has several files in the air that affect up to two million professionals and their companies.

It was in May 2025 when a royal decree regulated the possibility of extending early retirement, without losing a single euro of the benefit, to an unlimited number of activities. The requirement is that these have a high incidence of mortality or casualties. And the process, necessary to equalize these professions with others where this possibility has been applied for a long time, was designed with numerous guarantees. It involves unions and employers (although the consensus of social agents is not essential, as has been seen in the majority of the files presented). And it requires numerous reports that prove the effects that a certain work has on the people who do it.

But not even in the most obvious cases, such as those of road transport - high impact of road accidents, all favorable reports and consensus between employers and unions - has Social Security issued the final verdict (which is necessary after listening to the recommendations of a committee of experts).

It is difficult to find explanations for this delay even in times when the sustainability of the pension system is questioned. The mechanism, which consists of applying coefficients by which each year worked effectively adds more contribution time to be able to retire earlier without losing pension, was designed so that this would not be a problem or cause a hole in public accounts. In fact, it forces contributions to be advanced, so that the worker, even if he begins to collect the pension earlier, at the time of requesting it has contributed the same as another who has reached the legal retirement age.

It therefore has positive elements. And it is fair to recognize workers who, as the years go by, show more fatigue and thereby put their health (and on many occasions that of others) at risk. But any praise becomes superfluous when talking about a measure that has simply not been applied once. This makes it difficult to make a real evaluation of the mechanism. And it sets a bad precedent for the future.