Workers who access involuntary early retirement should know that this option does not require them to request a pension from Social Security and retire, so the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) cannot withdraw the unemployment benefit nor demand the return of the amounts collected as “undue” simply because the citizen could have requested the pension before.
The General Social Security Law establishes that unemployment benefits stop being collected upon reaching the worker’s retirement age. Now, the conflict comes when the administration equates the ordinary age with the theoretical date on which a worker in a sector such as mining or slate can access retirement through reducing coefficients.
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Thus, this new court ruling corrects that rigid vision and clearly distinguishes between the possibility of retiring and the obligation to do so. The court confirms that this is a “very free decision of the beneficiary” that should not penalize his unemployment protection. In other words, the worker does not have the obligation to retire if he has the possibility of accessing this early form, much less take away the benefit to which he is entitled for his contributions.
Difference between ordinary age and early retirement option
Article 272 point d of the General Social Security Law explains that the unemployment benefit will be extinguished when the beneficiary reaches the ordinary retirement age that corresponds to him (remember that according to Law 27/2011 there are two retirement ages). Even so, the Social Chamber clarifies that this concept is not equivalent to the date enabled for subsidized early retirement. The magistrates explain that accessing the pension through reducing coefficients is a power of the worker and not a legal imposition that automatically cancels other social benefits.
In this sense, the State Attorney sought to recover the payments made from the moment the worker could theoretically have retired. The Chamber rejects this point, arguing that, if the citizen decides not to retire yet, he must continue to have the right to the benefit until the effective date of his application or until he reaches the actual ordinary age. The ruling also explains that there is no obligation to access retirement at the earliest possible date due to activity.
The case of a worker who is saved from paying 7,380.91 euros
This judicial resolution is based on appeal 1149/2025 on the case of Mateo, an employee of the slate industry, in which the SEPE demanded the return of 7,380.91 euros, alleging that he should have retired in April 2023 instead of September. The administration considered the unemployment benefits received during those intermediate months to be improper.
The judges have confirmed that the event causing the pension occurs on the date of the application and not when the mathematical requirements are met. The ruling allows the worker to keep the unemployment collected between April and June 2023 since the economic effects of his pension were not activated until that date. This decision is vital for employees with physically demanding careers who decide to delay their definitive exit from the labor market without losing their protection rights.