The price of electricity, the cold and the fear of a blackout have brought a 19th century job back to London: chimney sweeps

When you hear about chimney sweeps, the image that comes to mind is that of men (or boys) from the late 19th century with smudged faces, shirts full of soot and a large broom on their shoulders. That’s the topic. The photographs that Google shows when we search for the word and the one it illustrates your entry on Wikipedia. Today the reality is very different. In the middle of 2026, not only are there still professionals dedicated to the trade, but they use cutting-edge technology and in cities like London they are experimenting a resurgence thanks to the price of energy. His appearance is nothing like that of the famous Bert de ‘Mary Poppins’but they continue to play a key role… and above all they are in demand. Chimney sweeps in 2026? Exact. And at least in London they are not an extemporaneous and decadent group, the memory of a bygone era. On the contrary. As I counted a few days ago The New York Times The profession is still very much alive there, it has been able to adapt to the needs (and resources) of the 21st century and above all it is experiencing a resurgence thanks to the cost of energy. The clearest proof is left by National Chimney Sweeps Association (NACS, for its acronym in English): in 2021 it had 590 members, today its membership base is already around 750. The union includes dozens of women and some businesses claim that in winter they receive between 70 and 80 calls a day. What do they do? Essentially the same as its predecessors from the 19th and 20th centuries, although in a very different context and with very different resources. To remove soot from chimneys they still use brushes that Bert from ‘Mary Popins’ would perfectly recognize, but that is only part of an arsenal that also includes digital cameras, industrial vacuum cleaners and smoke detection equipment. “Almost like chimney technicians,” points out Martin Glynnfrom NACS. Companies are even using drones to scan rooftops. Nothing to do with the habits that once made the profession infamous, such as employing orphans to climb chimneys and clean ducts. It sounds like terrifying science fiction, but this practice was common in the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact in 1875 the death of a child that got stuck in Fulbourn generated such a stir that the Government approved a law that banned “climbing children.” Are there still chimneys? Yes. British chimney sweeps were not immune to key changes, such as the popularization of central heating in the second half of the 20th century or the Clean Air Act (‘Clean Air Act‘) of 1956, but the union has been able to endure and today lives in a much kinder time, even one of vindication. I told it just a year ago in The Telegraph Steven Pearce, descendant of a long line of chimney sweeps who started in the trade decades ago, convinced that the profession’s days were numbered. “At first I only accepted it as a weekend job because we thought the trade would disappear with the 1956 law, when the Government gave local authorities the power to control the burning of coal and boiler fumes,” Pearce relates. “But that didn’t happen, in fact the last five years have been better than ever in business. It’s the busiest time I’ve seen in 45 years.” He is not the only one which confirms the rebirth of the profession. What is the reason? In 2026 English homes may not rely on coal and wood for heat, but they will still light their fireplaces. And not only because of the popularization of stoves. NACS itself admits that demand for its services has been driven by two factors: the increase in energy prices of recent years and a turbulent international context, in which the electricity supply seems a vulnerable flank to enemy attacks. The group also remembers that people simply “like to sit in front of a fireplace” to read, have a glass of wine, watch a movie and unwind. As if that were not enough, a good fire also helps reduce dependence and expense on central heating. What does the regulations say? Of course there are restrictions on the domestic use of coal, but The New York Times remember that even in areas like London the burning of authorized fuels They emit very little visible smoke. What they do generate is soot, which explains why the Government advises that chimneys be cleaned every year with professional help. “People think: ‘We’re going to have a plan B, a fireplace, a stove in case the power goes out,’” Glynn adds.president of NACS. “If you have the option of burning wood or smokeless fuel you can still cook and have some heating. There is a big increase in demand, people are lighting fireplaces again.” How does the future look? Steven Pearce assures that his clients continue buying stoves and admits that it is difficult for him to believe that people are going to do without the installations, even if they are prohibited. “I can’t imagine those who have spent £3,000 to £5,000 installing them not using them.” In fact, he maintains that in recent years he has seen “a great resurgence in the purchase of multi-fuel fireplaces and stoves, which burn wood, charcoal and smokeless materials.” It’s not all advantages: your ‘bill’ is PM2.5 emissionparticles invisible to the naked eye but which do represent a harmful “air pollutant”. Images | Wikipedia, Jorbasa Fotografie (Flickr) and NACS In Xataka | While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

Getting a manicure while she was on sick leave almost cost her her job. He was saved by a detective who didn’t know how to do his job.

Companies increasingly make use of the services of private detectives to investigate whether their employees really They are on sick leave or they are faking itwhich would be reason enough to a disciplinary dismissal. According to the detectives themselves, the companies that use their services do so because they previously They already have signs that there is fraud, which is why the majority of cases that are investigated agree with the companies that hire them and end up in disciplinary dismissal. However, in some cases, the way that evidence is obtained is the key to the success of the case. This is what happened to the employee of a beauty center in Barcelona. Despite being able to prove that there had been fraud, a sentence The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia declared the dismissal null and void and forced the company to compensate its employee. Medical leave and dismissal. The employee at the beauty center went to the doctor because of pain in her left hand and back, and they gave her the temporary disability leavewith rest and rehabilitation to recover. While she was still on sick leave, the company began to suspect that perhaps she was not that sick and decided to hire a private detective to check what she was doing outside of work. The detective prepared a report in which he noted that the worker had performed a manicure service for which she had charged 35 euros in cash while she was still on sick leave. With that report as a key piece in its argument, the company fired her via disciplinary dismissal, alleging that she had broken trust and that she was taking advantage of her leave to work on her own. In your dismissal letter you could read: “(…) you summoned, and performed a manicure treatment on, a person who was accompanied by said company (of detectives), at the aforementioned address, and charged this person in cash 35 euros for the service performed. The company has sufficient evidence, images and videos that confirm the regularity of these events.” What the court decides. The worker appealed the dismissal because she understood that it was unfair and was based on evidence obtained illegally. In the first instance, the Social Court No. 1 of Barcelona agreed with the company and declared that the dismissal was appropriate, and assigned the employee to collect 771.15 euros for untaken vacations plus 10% late payment interest. But did not recognize compensation some. The story changed when the case reached the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJCAT), when the worker appealed that first sentence. The Social Court reviewed how the detective’s evidence had been obtained and concluded that it was invalid because it had been obtained by inducing the situation. That is to say, something that was already happening had not been observed, but rather the opportunity had been created for the employee to do that manicure. What Detectives Can and Can’t Do. The case puts on the table what private detectives can do when investigating a person on sick leave and what lines they cannot cross. From Sentinel Private Detectivesremember that the law “prohibits them from taking images or evidence of events that occur in the intimate part of people’s lives. The garden is also considered an extension of the home,” so they cannot record there if it is a closed space. The investigation agency points out that their work should focus on “following and observing, without forcing situations,” and that their role is that of “mere observers of facts and behaviors.” Jordi Briñoldirector of Brininvest Detectiveshighlights that its activity is regulated by the Private Security Law and for the Civil Procedure Law, and that in cases of sick leave they can only act in “open spaces.” According to his explanation, “anything that happens in intimate spaces or that has what is called an expectation of privacy, we cannot access there”, and any monitoring must comply with what he calls “the triple judgment of proportionality”, that is, that the evidence is adequate, necessary and that it does not take longer than reasonable. The researcher clarifies that they can carry out actions under pretext (for example, making an appointment in a publicly announced consultation), but “we cannot provoke an unnatural response”, which fits with the idea that the person under investigation cannot be induced to commit the infraction. Why the detective’s evidence is useless. In this case, the court considers that the detective did not limit himself to looking from the outside at what the convalescent employee was doing as his regulations dictate, but that he intervened to make the behavior happen for which she was later punished. Along these lines, the ruling links with the doctrine of the Supreme Court that rejects evidence based on provocation, and remembers that situations cannot be fabricated and then used as an excuse to fire. By removing the detective’s report from the case, the company’s entire argument collapsed, so the Court understands that the true reason for dismissal is that the worker I was on medical leavesomething that Law 15/2022 prohibits using illness as a reason to dismiss a person because it represents discrimination due to illness. For this reason, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia declares the dismissal void, orders that the company reinstate the employee, pay her all the salaries that she stopped receiving during the time that the judicial process lasted and pay her 7,501 euros for moral damages, in addition to 600 euros in defense fees. In Xataka | Social Security has published the data on sick leave in 2024 and we have bad news: we have broken a record Image | Unsplash (Behnaz Kh)

we have the highest unemployment in the EU and also the lowest number of job vacancies

Spain presents a phenomenon that at first glance seems contradictory: although it maintains one of the highest unemployment rates among advanced countries, it also registers one of the lowest proportions of vacancies in the EU. Understand this paradox It requires looking beyond the numbers and analyzing how employment supply and demand really work in the Spanish labor market. According to According to the INE, the unemployment rate in Spain is 10.5%, being the highest in the OECD compared to other developed countries, where the average is around 4.5%. At the same time, according to data According to Eurostat, the vacancy rate in Spain is only 0.9%, well below the European average of 2.1%. What is a vacancy? To understand why this combination occurs, it is helpful to define what a vacancy is. In the Eurostat definition This does not equate to “positions that the country would generally need to fill”, but to “newly created, vacant or about to become vacant paid position for which the employer is taking active steps and is willing to take additional steps to find a suitable candidate outside the company, and which the employer intends to fill immediately or within a specified period for which there is an active search and with an intention to fill soon.” So it is not “everything that would need to be hired in general”, but rather what is open at that moment. It’s like a photo of that exact moment, but it doesn’t show its reality. The “logic” behind the paradox. When a labor market grows, many vacancies can be expected to arise because there is more demand for workers. If, in addition, there is little unemployment, that demand tends to translate quickly into contracts. However, in Spain the reality is different. Although employment has grown in recent years, and there are busier people than ever (with membership records to Social Security), unemployment remains high compared to the EU, and vacancies do not increase at the expected rate. Mismatches between labor supply and demand. A key factor noted in the official reports is the mismatch between the skills that companies demand and those offered by unemployed people. That is, it can there are positions availablebut not that they correspond to the skills of those seeking employment. This type of mismatch is reflected in specific sectors (technology, engineering, health care) where companies claim to have difficulties find suitable profileswhile at the same time there are workers who cannot find a job. Some economists also highlight that the available offers tend to concentrate in sectors with high seasonality and little stability, such as services or tourism, where many vacancies are seasonal or short-term, which does not encourage all the unemployed to join immediately. Poorly distributed employment. Another element to consider is labor mobility. In Spain, there is a great imbalance between the territories with the greatest job offer and those with the greatest demand for employment. That is to say, employment is concentrated in large cities and industrial areas, while unemployment figures skyrocket in rural areas and in emptied Spain, contributing to maintaining this mismatch between the location of supply and demand. On the other hand, the stagnation of vacancies can also be explained by the high labor market rotation. Many times the position remains current and what happens is that it is the employees who rotate through that position. The job is still there, but it does not always appear as a “new vacancy” in the statistics, so the vacancy rate may be low, although real employment grows due to the high turnover of that position.​ For example, a waiter position is not listed as vacant, but the restaurant hires a new employee for that position every few months. The position is not vacant for statistical purposes, but the labor market does not stop registering new hires. What does this paradox tell us? That Spain has a lot of unemployment and few vacancies compared to the EU does not mean that there are no jobs available. What it indicates is that the labor market is functioning with difficulties: positions offered do not always fit the profile of unemployed people, there are great differences between sectors and an important part of the employment is temporarywhen many workers seek stability. Therefore, even when there are vacancies, they do not always end up being consolidated in the form of contracts. This situation does not depend only on a specific economic moment of prosperity or crisis, but also on underlying problems in the Spanish labor market. That this paradox continues over time points to the need to improve training, facilitate mobility between sectors and territories, raise the quality of employment and have statistics more adjusted to the reality of the labor market in Spain. In Xataka | In Belgium you could collect unemployment indefinitely. Your government has a new idea: put everyone to work Image | Unsplash (Mika Baumeister)

The lack of generational change has opened a job opportunity for thousands of young people in Spain: bus driver

The driver shortage In Spain and Europe it has generated an opportunity for those looking for a stable and well-paid job. Municipal companies are fighting to hire new talents who want to train as drivers of their city buses. The lack of generational change in passenger transportation is a problem that affects many local companies, which cannot fill the vacancies left by retiring drivers. The shortage of drivers in Spain and Europe. According to published data According to the European employment body EURES, in 2023 there were 105,000 vacancies for bus and coach drivers in Europe, which represents 10% of all positions in the sector and an increase in vacancies of 54% compared to the previous year. In Spain the situation is not better. The driver shortage already an officially recognized structural problem. The deficit affects both the freight and passenger transport sectors, and contrasts with the surplus in other professions such as administrative or technical personnel. The forecasts of the transport sector is that, by 2026, 37,000 new bus drivers and about 126,000 truck drivers will be needed. Why are there drivers missing? Among the structural factors that aggravate the shortage of drivers, the absence of a generational change. According to a report According to the Spanish Bus Transport Confederation (CONFEBUS), the aging of the workforce is one of the main reasons for this shortage. Data recorded by the International Road Transport Union (IRU) included in the EURES report indicated that, in many European countries, less than 5% of drivers are under 25 years old. Furthermore, the incorporation of women to the sector is very low, since only 12% of drivers in the EU are women. He sector It estimates that it will need about 24,000 new drivers per year to compensate for the rate of retirement of current staff. CONFEBUS also recognizes that working conditions in the sector Nor have they helped to attract young people: long hours, irregular shifts, temporary contracts and poor family conciliation. Access to training and certification is another obstacle, since the obtaining the CAP or the D permit entails a high cost, especially for young people or migrants who do not have sufficient economic resources and find there a barrier to accessing these jobs. Government aid for training. Precisely to alleviate this economic obstacle when obtaining permission to transport goods and passengers, the Government has promoted a Royal Decree which gives the green light to the Reconduce Plan, which offers aid of up to 3,000 euros to cover the costs of training and obtaining a bus or truck driver’s license. This helps is directed to people who want to train in the road transport sector and is available to cover the costs of the necessary courses and exams. The conditions to access this aid include being registered in the National Youth Guarantee System and meeting the age and training requirements demanded by the Ministry of Transport. Driverless buses. Faced with a prospect of constant staff shortages due to the progressive aging of the population, more and more city councils are deciding to start pilot tests with autonomous buses on their streets, not without some reluctance among the current driver templates. For example, in August the first test of this style was launched in Barcelona, ​​allowing a driverless bus to cover a short 10-minute stretch in open traffic. Our colleague Iván Linares tried it in first person. Madrid has just started a similar test autonomous bus, although in this case its scope of circulation is limited to Mercamadrid. These projects seek to modernize urban transportation and guarantee mobility, although they are still in the experimental phase, so they do not represent a short-term solution to the problem of driver shortages. In Xataka | Barcelona has grown tired of fining 80 cars a day for invading the bus lane. So he’s going to start monitoring them with AI Image | Wikimedia Commons (KingValid04)

Jeff Bezos’ grandfather had the key to finding a job in the age of AI: being an inventor

With saturated selection processes (or directly broken) and the AI conditioning skills that companies demand, there is a skill that Jeff Bezos considers irreplaceable: the ability to invent. The millionaire value this skill above traditional knowledge or experience. Bezos considers that inventiveness is vital to maintaining creativity and innovation in modern companies, ensuring that he himself has applied it to bring Amazon and Blue Origin to their current situation. Lessons from his grandfather. In an interview During the Italian Tech Week 2025 conference that took place in Turin, the millionaire commented that his grandfather was capable of solving any problem on his Texas ranch by himself, without depending on outside help. “He bought a bulldozer for about $5,000 because it was completely broken. We spent a whole summer fixing it. To remove the transmission, we had to build our own crane. And that’s why he had an incredible ability to adapt. He believed he could solve any problem. And I watched him,” Bezos said during his interview. “He did veterinary work with the cattle. He made the needles himself. He took a small piece of wire and heated it with a blowtorch, flattened it, sharpened it and made a small hole in it. Some cows even survived,” he commented sarcastically. That ability to adapt and create practical solutions taught him the value of inventiveness in facing difficulties, a lesson that Bezos has also applied in his life and in the management of Amazon. The “inventor” of Amazon. Bezos himself defines himself as an inventor, stating that “it is his fundamental nature. Put me in front of a white board and I can generate a hundred ideas in half an hour.” The founder of Amazon looks for those creative skills in his team members. In an interview In 2012 at the Utah Technology Council, Bezos indicated that “when I interview candidates, I ask them to give me an example of something they have invented.” Obviously the millionaire was not referring to a patent, but to a process, an idea or a solution to a problem that existed and for which he imagined a solution. “You have to select people who like to invent, think innovatively,” said the millionaire. Innovation as an antidote to fear. One of the six fears that have defined Jeff Bezos’ career is the fear of garages. Not in the literal sense of the place but of the symbolic sense of innovation that they have acquired: HP was born in a garage, just like Apple. “Two kids in a garage scare me more than the competitors I already know,” assured Bezos in an interview. The inventive capacity is a lever towards innovation and experimentation, which has been one of the pillars of the business culture that has taken Amazon to where it is today. “Someone who comes to Amazon and doesn’t like pioneering, doesn’t like exploring, doesn’t like going down dead ends that often turn out to be dead ends, will leave soon,” Bezos said in his interview. In his job interviews, Bezos asks: “How can we do A and B? What invention do we need to bring the two together?” That is, value those candidates who do not see the options in black and white, but rather look for new ways to combine and improve processes to innovate. AI has accelerated everything. More and more CEOs and senior officials at large technology companies agree that they are the skills and attitudes, and not the knowledgewhich will make candidates stand out in the age of AI. The current CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, ​​pointed out that knowledge can be acquired over time, but what companies need in this era of constant innovation are people who know how to adapt to any circumstance and learn from it. “The biggest difference between the people I started with in the early stages of my career and what they are doing now has to do with how good they were at learning.” According to Jassy, ​​the attitude and talent to innovate It has to come standard. In Xataka | Jeff Bezos has the world’s laziest metaphor for AI: “someone invented the plow and we all got rich” In Xataka | If your chair limps during a job interview, it’s no coincidence: they’re evaluating more than just your resume. Image | Flickr (iafastro)

in your job interviews

Every time a developer participates in a job interview they must pass a technical testthe routine seems clear: demonstrate your programming skills and advance in the selection process. However, behind these common dynamics, there is a risk that many had not stopped to analyze: cyber attacks that take advantage of the context of these interviews with developers. to steal sensitive data. Cybercriminals have perfected their techniques, using routine, seemingly legitimate personnel selection processes to deceive the most experts and access a bounty of data especially valuable. Deception in the job offer. At this point, I believe that there is no one left who has not at some point received a call from InfoJobs, Indeed or any other supposed employment platform indicating that their resume had been chosen to fill a vacancy. Obviously, it’s a scam of which the platforms themselves they have disengaged. This is what we could consider a “trawl fishing” in which the objective is to increase the possibilities of stealing data by increasing the database potential victims. However, the software developer David Dodda has alerted from your blog of a much more elaborate attack than the one he was about to be a victim of: a selective attack on computer experts camouflaged in the technical test of a job interview. As he tells it in the first person, “I was 30 seconds away from running malware on my machine.” A semblance of normality. Dodda is a freelance programmer with several years of experience and received an unexpected offer on LinkedIn that offered him work part-time at a startup dedicated to software development. “It seemed legitimate. So I accepted the call,” said the developer. The company’s LinkedIn profile seemed legitimate, had previous publications, employees, recent activity and everything verifiable on the platform. The same was true with the person who had contacted him. After scheduling the interview, his contact assigned him a technical test “to get ahead” before the interview. something routine for any developer, especially in processes where practical mastery is expected to be assessed before the interview with the recruiter. This apparent normality of the offer and the acceptance of the technical test reinforce the climate of trust, one of the most exploited elements in social engineering campaigns aimed at deceiving candidates. Code hidden in plain sight. The technical material of the test also did not raise the developer’s suspicions. Before executing the code, he reviewed it in detail, correcting some defects in a test without major complications for an experienced programmer like him. However, just as he was about to run it, and almost out of professional habit, “I had one of those paranoid developer moments.” The expert decided to ask his AI Cursor assistant to review the code. The surprise was capital. “Integrated between legitimate management functions, ready to run with full server privileges when accessing management routes,” is how the developer described the snippet. malware ready to run on your computer. Free access to all your data. The first phase of the malware was designed to extract critical information: passwords, personal files, system credentials and access to cryptocurrency wallets. But the scope of the attack went far beyond the victim’s personal data. According to a report From consulting firm Unit 42, developer teams host data from third-party servers and projects, which multiplies the value of the attack if the fraud is successful. In some cases analyzed, the malicious code used apparently legitimate code and Python backdoors, to ensure unrestricted remote access by the attacker. Analysis of an attack on the elite. According what was published by Telefónica Tech, the main objective of these attacks is not to capture basic data from ordinary users, but rather to access high-value resources managed by active programmers. The deception is structured in several phases where elements such as urgency, psychological pressure and the trust generated in the selection process are exploited. Technical tests, especially when required under time pressure, can lead candidates to skip security steps that they would normally execute in a more relaxed environment. This gives attackers a direct route to assets such as confidential documents, access to client servers and cryptocurrencies. According to the analyzes from Securonix, these methods have evolved since 2022 with targeted and persistent attacks on relevant targets in professional environments. In Xataka | People couldn’t stop hacking virtual job interviews with AI. Solution: we want to meet you in person Image | Unasplash (Joan Gamell)

Chema Alonso already has a new job after leaving Telefónica. He has passed to football

Chema Alonso has a new destination after his departure from Telefónica. The well -known hacker joins the Technical Referees Committee as an advisor to technological innovation and artificial intelligenceas announced by President Francisco Javier Soto on Monday and collects Ace. Why is it important. The arrival of Alonso to Spanish arbitration marks a radical turn in his career. After more than a decade in Telefónica trying digitally to Teleco, it will now apply its technological experience to a historically conservative sector that is in transformation: arbitration. The context. Soto seeks to completely modernize Spanish arbitration after years of controversies. Its strategy is to incorporate technological talent to improve arbitration decision making through AI. “We are going to start from scratch,” said the new president of the CTA. Alonso definitively abandons the world of telecommunications after his gradual abandonment, crystallized in The dismantling of your team a few days ago. His passage through the operator was marked by ambitious projects such as “Fourth platform“, the aura assistant or Movistar Homewhich did not reach expected commercial expectations. Organization chart of CTA for season 25/26. Image: RFEF. Between bambalins. The signing reflects the new Spanish arbitration strategy: betting on external technical profiles to solve structural problems. Alonso joins a renewed dome that includes Fernández Borbalán as technical director and Prieto Iglesias as head of the VAR, both old acquaintances of Spanish arbitration. The incorporation of Alonso raises some questions about his ability to apply AI to arbitration in a practical way. In Telefónica he gave grandiloque ads that rarely transformed into successful products, although some like Open Gateway They are good advances. Deepen. Spanish football will be its new fire test to demonstrate that it can transform traditional sectors with technology. Your choice transmits the need that Spanish arbitration has to legitimize technologically. His media profile fits with the need to communicate modernization in a collective, that of arbitration; and an institution, the RFEF; questioned by both clubs and fans. In Xataka | Wearing a retro shirt of Betis on the street is no longer a “fifes” thing: how football fashion has left the stadium Outstanding image | RFEF, Telefónica

Some employees sued their company for cutting the salary. The supreme has responded that being unpunctual is not a job

The working day is much more than a simple time convention. From the labor reform of 2021, in which the SCHEDULE HOURS REGISTRATION As a method to measure Time really workedhas become a factor that conditions the salary that the employee must receive. Both when working More hours of the agreedlike when it doesn’t meet them. That is precisely what the Supreme Court had to remind them of the collective claim of a group of workers filed against their employer. If you do not meet your schedule and you are late, You will charge less. What happened? As you can read in The Supreme Court Judgmenta group of workers, represented by their union links, said that, due to the distance between the system of day registration And the employee’s job, every day they were counted between one and three minutes of delay, which was added monthly. The employees complained that, when doing the payrolls, the company discounted that time not worked on their salary, so they received less than agreed. What do employees claim? Workers recognize that Importuality It is a reason for sanction contemplated in the collective agreement of the company, but does not apply to salary reduction for that reason. Instead, it should be done through other types of warnings or compensation since the agreement is governed by a certain amount of annual hours, not for daily days. In this way, the company could ask employees to compensate for that time at any other time of the year, avoiding salary cut. Employees consider that, delays the delays of their salary, they would be imposing a double sanction and incurring a type of sanction called “Fine of having“, in which salary amounts are subtracted or sanctions on vacations or holidays are applied. A practice prohibited by article 58.3 of the Workers Statute. What does the Supreme Court say? The sentence of the High Court bases its argument to give the reason to the company in article 26.1 of the Statute of the Workers in which it is specified: “The totality of the economic perceptions of the workers, in money or in kind, for the professional benefit of the labor services in an alienation, and the effective work, whatever the form of remuneration, or the computable rest periods as a computable rest periods,” will be considered salary. The supreme considers that salary Back the work Cash or the computable rest time as work, while in article 30 of the Workers’ Statute it is established that “the worker will keep the right to his salary if he does not provide services for cause to the employer and not the worker.” Therefore, “during the time when the worker does not provide labor services, having an obligation to do so, without any justification, the sinalagmatic character of the employment contract assumes that salary is not accrued, without this implying a fine of having.” That is, since the unpunctuality was not produced for any reason attributable to the company, and the time of delay is not considered effective working timethe company is in its right not to pay it, without being considered as a sanction. Not that they don’t pay you, they can fire you. The Supreme Court specifies that the “fine of having” applies when it occurs in a salary cut or benefits to which the worker is entitled. However, in this case, “the worker has no right to receive said salary because he has not provided services for causes only to him,” the sentence abounds. In other words: the company does not have to pay for a job that the employee has not done and, therefore, cannot apply any penalty about something that does not correspond to it. In addition, the Supreme Court rules out the assumption of the double sanction since it has been shown that it is something that employees have no right because they have not provided the service that justifies it, although it indicates that “a contractual breach that, if reiterated, justifies the exercise of disciplinary power by the employer.” That is, that the company is not obliged to pay for the time that has not been worked, but can impose disciplinary measures on employees (and even cause with dismissal) by repeated breach of your contract without just cause. In Xataka | It seemed obvious, but the Supreme has had to remember: Ryanair cannot choose union, employees choose Image | Flickr (Kris Arnold), Unspash (MUSEMIND UX AGENCY)

have high -risk job

The Council of Ministers has given green light to a key reform that will allow those who work in professions cataloged as especially dangerous or painful retire before usual. The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, Elma Saiz, stressed that this reform “brings us closer to policies approved by European environmental countries, such as France, Austria or Italy, but above all it is a step forward in social justice.” The objective is clear: to offer an exit from the worthy work world to those who exercise Professions with high accident rates and occupational diseases such as firefighters, miners, height workers, police or flight personnel. Retirees at 52 years. The government has A procedure approved to establish reducing coefficients that allow anticipating retirement age for those who perform activities considered “exceptionally painful, toxic, dangerous or unhealthy” and present “high rates of morbidity or mortality.” Thus, the approval of early retirement applications is extended to unions that until now were not included in the professions list painful and high risk. Among the objective criteria to identify these professions include exposure to noise, permanent use of physical strength, contact with chemical or biological agents and the high probability of suffering work accidents. However, the Royal approved decree It does not specify what professions affect, delegating to social security, employers and unions the task of specifying the specific casuistry of each guild. Requirements to retire in advance. To access this early retirement, maintaining 100% of the retirement pension, workers must prove that they have performed these activities for a minimum time of 15 years and exercise it at the time of requesting the early retirement. The minimum retirement age, even applying these coefficients, may not be less than 52 years, and it will not be possible Active retirement in the same work activity that gave access to retirement. Retirement for other employees. The Law 27/2011 It establishes the terms of the progressive increase in the retirement age in Spain and the quotation time. In 2025, the Ordinary retirement age in Spain It is 66 years and 6 months for those who have quoted less than 38 years, while those who have contributed 38 years and three months can request ordinary retirement at age 65. With the new measure approved by the Government, those who request to retire at age 52 will be computed the remaining years up to 65 years as quoted, so that they are not applied reducing percentages to their pension. Voluntary early retirement. For those who wish to retire in advance without belonging to the recognized risk groups, the law contemplates a significant reduction in the pension. In 2025, the penalty can reach up to 21% of the pension amount if the permitted retirement is advanced, which is 24 months before the ordinary age. That is, a minimum age of 63 years is established to request it. This penalty applies progressively and depends both on the advance time and the quoted years. Social security calculates the cut by applying reducing coefficients for each quarter or month of advance with respect to the legal retirement age. This measure aims to discourage early retirement generalized and guarantee the viability of the public pension system. In Xataka | Working beyond 67 years: Germany has broken its pension system and is an advance for Europe In Xataka | There is a man who had been working for the same company for 86 years. He has just retired at 102 Image | Unspash (Matt c)

The real challenge will be to choose a career with a future job when they approve it

Next June 3 gives the exit gun in several autonomous communities to the University Access Test (PAU). Beyond testing the acquired knowledge, the test is a decisive step in the orientation and five -year professional view of the young people who present them today. Its result will mark the decision of university careers those who can access. On the other hand, 75% of companies ensure Not find qualified personnel For vacancies due to lack of specialized training, which denotes a mismatch between preferences in university studies that are taken and real needs of companies. For this reason, taking into account the labor insertion of each career can be very useful to say for a specialty with labor guarantees. More and more university students, but less specialists. According to data from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of 2024, 341,831 students enrolled in the access test, of which 95.8% was presented and approved 90.2% of those who completed the test. In contrast, the report Labor market in Spain 2024prepared by Infojobs and ESADE, points out that only 31% of the candidates who responded to a job offer on that platform had a university degree, while only 11% of the published offers demanded that training. On the other hand, 27% of job seekers had a specialization of professional training, and 22% of vacancies required that degree. These data show the mismatch between training of employment plaintiffs and what companies are really looking for, especially in relation to university training. Studies with greater job insertion. According to the study The employability of young people in Spain 2024 Prepared by the CYD Foundation on the work outputs of the different university careers, engineering (electrical, industrial electronics, software development, telecommunications, etc.) are the ones that offer better working conditions to their graduates in terms of Stability in contractssalaries and affiliation rates. It is closely followed by those careers related to the health and care sphere, mainly driven by a high demand generated by the aging of the population. The First data of 2025 facilitated by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities point to an analysis along the same lines, placing the different engineering such as the branch with greater stability and insertion rates, followed by health sciences. What companies demand. On the other side of the labor market is the demand of companies, which is aligned with the data that reflects the careers with better labor insertion. The aforementioned report Labor market in Spain 2024 It reflects that many of the offers published in 2024 in Infojobs responded to an engineering profile, with very little competition for each of the offers and with good remuneration in counterpart. In this sense, the Emerging jobs and sectors report 2024 It puts special emphasis on the demand for professionals related to the implementation and development of AI, such as data engineering and Machine Learning, whose demand has grown by 625% since 2019, or artificial intelligence engineering that grows at the rate of 83% per year, with a very low candidate competition for each job offer. On the other hand, the report prepared by Infojobs and ESADE, highlights that in 2024 97,500 vacancies related to health care and care on that platform were counted. Of them 98% and 97% corresponded to vacancies requested nurses and physiotherapists respectively. Both with university studies. The red lanterns. The races related to the branch of arts and humanities have been marking years A downward trend in terms of labor insertion. On average, only 63.5% of the graduates in these branches find a job four years after finishing their training. Only 34.2% do so during the following year to finish them. This data contrasts with the 77.8% computer science that finds a job the first year. In Xataka | Construction and hospitality do not hire the same pace as before. Health and education cut cod in job creation Image | Unspash (Brett Jordan)

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