Agricultural Sector Migrant Workers

The  Secretary of State for Migration  has just published Instruction 3/2020 of the General Directorate of Migrations on the extension of migrant workers whose work permit ends in the period between the entry into force of Royal Decree 463/2020, of 14 March and June 30, 2020 pursuant to Article 2.1 C) Royal Decree-Law 13/2020, of April 7, which adopts certain urgent measures in the field of agricultural employment, which you can download below and which we highlight:

(…) The Government has approved Royal Decree-Law 13/2020, of April 7, which adopts certain urgent measures in the field of agricultural employment . The main objective of this royal decree-law, as indicated in article 1, is to promote the temporary hiring of workers in the agricultural sector by establishing extraordinary measures to make employment more flexible, of a social and labor nature , necessary to ensure the maintenance of the agrarian activity, during the validity of the state of alarm declared by Royal Decree 463/2020, of March 14, which declares the state of alarm for the management of the situation of sanitary crisis caused by the COVID-19,being of temporary application until June 30, 2020. 

The labor contracts affected by this measure will be all those of a temporary nature to carry out activities in a foreign and dependency regime in agricultural holdings included in any of the CNAE codes specific to agrarian activity , regardless of the professional category or specific occupation of the employee, whose signature and termination are included in the period indicated in the previous paragraph.

Article 2.1 of the aforementioned royal decree-law, establishes as beneficiaries of the extraordinary labor flexibility measures, the people who, upon the entry into force of the royal decree-law, are in any of the following situations:

a) People in a situation of unemployment or cessation of activity.

b) Workers whose contracts have been temporarily suspended as a consequence of the temporary closure of the activity in accordance with the provisions of article 47 of the revised text of the Workers’ Statute Law, approved by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2015, of 23 October, in the terms indicated in article 3.1.b).

c) Migrant workers whose work permit ends in the period between the entry into force of Royal Decree 463/2020, of March 14 and June 30, 2020, whose extension will be determined through instructions from the Secretary of State of Migrations.

d) Likewise, young nationals of third countries, who are in a regular situation between the ages of 18 and 21, will be eligible.

(…)

4. The companies and employers will communicate to the competent autonomous public employment services the contracts included in this royal decree-law in the usual way, filling in the specific identifier of the offer they have assigned. The State Public Employment Service will identify these contracts and will forward the information to the corresponding authorities, to the competent public Administrations, and in any case to the labor authority, the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate and the State Secretariat for Migration.

(…)

Taking into account the above from this General Directorate, (…), the following Instruction is issued:

FIRST

They are automatically extended until June 30, 2020 and, without any additional procedure, the residence and work authorizations of those migrants whose authorization entails an authorization to work, regardless of the type of authorization and their sectoral and geographical scope, and that expires in the period between the entry into force of Royal Decree 463/2020, of March 14 and June 30, 2020, and that they will carry out agricultural activities under the conditions established in Royal Decree 13/2020, of April 7, by which certain urgent measures are adopted in the field of agricultural employment.