The Department of Employment, Business, and Self-Employment allocated an investment of 96.2 million euros in 2024 to promote self-employment, entrepreneurship, and social economy entities as «an option for job creation and improving the capacity of the Andalusian business fabric.» This was highlighted by the councilor Rocío Blanco in a parliamentary committee, where she outlined the various initiatives to activate the labor market implemented during the past year, which resulted in an execution of over 715 million euros.
Among them, the councilor emphasized the significant investment effort in self-employment, «a priority sector for our economy,» which benefited 31,741 self-employed workers in Andalusia. In this regard, she mentioned the promotion of self-employment through subsidy programs like the ‘Zero Fee,’ which reduces the social security burdens of these workers in the early years of their activity, and in 2024, a total of 16,160 workers benefited from it, amounting to 16.7 million euros.
In addition, Blanco also recalled the grants for the ‘Start of Activity’ for new self-employed workers covered by the flat-rate national quota, which amounted to 70.3 million euros and benefited 15,581 self-employed workers. The total amount for the 2023-2024 call reached 132 million euros.
Furthermore, in order to promote business collaboration and encourage larger companies, a new call for grants aimed at promoting the association of self-employed individuals was carried out in 2024, benefiting three entities with around 2.5 million euros.
Likewise, to enhance the positioning and representativeness of the Social Economy, the Employment Department granted 1.72 million euros through the ‘Associationism of the Program for the Promotion and Development of the Social Economy’ line; 2.32 million euros to promote stable, qualified, and quality employment in Cooperatives and Labor Societies; and another 2.15 million euros to promote the dissemination and promotion of the sector, as well as to foster entrepreneurship, innovation, and competitiveness in these types of entities.
To complement the investments in this area, Blanco highlighted the launch last year of the network of chairs in social economy through an agreement with the 10 public universities in Andalusia, with an amount of 385,000 euros.
Other notable grant programs
In addition to the investment in self-employment, the councilor also mentioned other measures developed by her department in 2024 to create stable and quality employment in Andalusia.
Regarding employment incentives, she highlighted two programs as part of the Andalusian Youth Employment Plan, such as ‘Active Andalusia,’ which with over 106 million granted to 801 municipalities and local autonomous entities, enabled the hiring of 10,127 unemployed individuals; and ‘Employ-Youth,’ where the call for four of its seven lines resulted in over 62 million granted to 2,608 benefiting entities and the hiring of 4,125 unemployed.
She also mentioned grants for the integration of people with disabilities through special employment centers and regular companies, which totaled over 104 million euros in 2024 to support the employment of 19,290 people with disabilities. Likewise, the incentive program for stable employment generation in Andalusia, aimed at companies and self-employed individuals, was granted with over 10.8 million euros in 2024.
Regarding Vocational Training, Blanco emphasized the development of the ‘Employment and Training’ program, in collaboration with non-profit local entities, which allowed for 509 actions with alternating training contracts for 3,048 students thanks to an investment of over 83.7 million euros. She also referred to the granting of over 57 million euros in subsidies to finance the training offer of the Vocational Training System in the labor market associated with the National Catalog of Professional Qualifications, as well as over 17.3 million euros to support non-certification training offers.
In the training field, the Employment Councilor also highlighted the development of the ‘Reskilling & Upkilling’ programs, for the non-formal qualification and requalification training of the active population in strategic sectors, which allocated over 44.4 million euros for the training of 84,398 individuals until June 2025; as well as the ‘Prepared’ program, initiated in 2022 and aimed at developing employability and digital entrepreneurship skills among women in municipalities with less than 30,000 inhabitants. A program that, endowed with over 30 million euros, will continue until June 2026, having already benefited a total of 55,323 women out of the planned 85,000 by the end of 2024.
Furthermore, in terms of job orientation and labor intermediation, Blanco mentioned the grants issued by the Andalusian Employment Service (SAE) such as the ‘Professional Orientation and Insertion Support’ program, which in its latest 2024 call granted over 29.4 million euros. Similarly, with the ‘Comprehensive Projects T – We Accompany for the labor insertion of young people’ called in December 2024 and with a total committed amount of 61.8 million euros.
Lastly, among the measures aimed at promoting trade and craftsmanship, she highlighted the grants aimed at improving their competitiveness and digitalization. The first call, aimed at fostering sector growth and consolidation, resulted in the granting of over 12.5 million euros to 517 beneficiary SMEs. These grants, in their B category, will be open in the first semester of this year and will continue until 2026 with a budget of 7 million euros to support the productive sector in adopting technologies and TIC business models.
After presenting the balance, the councilor expressed her satisfaction with the measures implemented by the Department in the past year, which «have fulfilled the dual purpose of creating favorable conditions for workers to access employment and, at the same time, for self-employed individuals and companies to find the profiles they need, contributing to fostering a favorable environment for entrepreneurship and a competitive environment for the consolidation of a stronger and more robust business fabric.»