Spain’s Emergency Wage Support May Be Extended Yet Again in 2021

Spain is prepared to extend its furlough program beyond January, Social Security Minister Jose Luis Escriva said, in the clearest statement yet on the future of the wage-support policy. “We stand ready to reevaluate the situation,” Escriva said in an interview, one week after the government agreed to prolong its previous aid measure through Jan. 31. “A lot will depend on a vaccine.” A further extension could protect hundreds of thousands of at-risk jobs in a country that already has one of the region’s highest rates of unemployment and which is also suffering one of its most dramatic coronavirus outbreaks.