34,911 laid off during Covid-19 pandemic

Madrid had the highest number of workers affected in Spain with 219,028, followed by Catalonia with 149,474 and Andalusia with 107,516.

71,759 workers were affected in the Valencian Community and 40,191 in Castilla y León.

At the other end of the scale, the places with the lowest numbers affected were La Rioja with 5,404 and Extremadura with 7,153.

According to Ministry data, 830,643 people were laid off nationwide between January and April this year, 27 times more than the same period in 2019 and 252,304 of them were in April.

826,393 of them had their contracts suspended or their working hours reduced and 4,250 workers were made redundant.

In April, only 24 workers out of 252,304 were made redundant, the rest were furloughed or had their hours reduced.

Of the 830,643 workers affected in the first four months of the year, 635,495 were allegedly caused by force majeure, compared to 266 in 2019.

Lay-offs for economic, technical, organisational or production reasons between January and April, affected 195,148 workers, which is more than six times higher than the same period of 2019.

In April alone, 135,864 workers were affected by objective causes compared to 116,440 who were included in force majeure.

By Sector, 245,593 were laid off in the Wholesale & Retail Trade and Vehicle Repair Industry, 143,844 in Hospitality and 116,578 in Administrative Activities.

The lowest number of employees laid off was 4,934 in the Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry & Fishing Sector followed by Financial Activities with 6,206, Electricity Supply with 9,328 and Health with 10,622.

The number of people furloughed in the first four months of the year skyrocketed after the State of Emergency was declared on March 14 as a consequence of the Covid-19 crisis.

"It has not been possible in most cases to send information to the Subdirectorate-General for Statistics & Socio-Labour Analysis,” said the Ministry of Labour & Social Economy.

The term for the Labour Authorities to submit the necessary information to prepare the Employment Regulation Statistics has been extended so that people can access benefits.