Spain: Inditex group to cover for one month the cost of employees having to stop work

The Inditex group, which owns fashion retailers such as Zara, has announced to unions and employee representatives that it will not, at present, activate the extraordinary short-time working mechanism that allows it to benefit from extraordinary state aid to cope with the decline in business activities. The group plans to keep paying the wages of its employees in full until 15 April, despite stores closing and sales coming to a halt amid the coronavirus outbreak. This announcement concerns the 25,000 employees at its logistics centres, but the group has left open the possibility of temporary layoffs for the employees working at its 1,580 stores, if the state of emergency requiring the closure of stores and the population to stay indoors is extended further. “The Inditex group has understood that with historic profits of €3.639 billion, it made no sense to benefit from the government’s economic package to protect businesses and their employees from the consequences of the coronavirus crisis,” says the CCOO union, which had asked management to take sole responsibility for the costs, given the group’s excellent financial situation.