There are three documents that all workers must be familiar with: the payroll, the contribution basis report and work life. The latter should be reviewed every so often and it includes all the periods in which we have worked, both in public and private companies, indicating the time paid full or part-time in each job. Thus, it is the reference that is used when processing all types of aid, from unemployment benefits (such as unemployment benefits) to Social Security benefits or even retirement pensions.
That said, there are many workers who, when unloading their working life, are surprised to find that days and even years of contributions have been taken away from them. “Why are they taking away years of contributions from my working life? You don’t know how many clients ask us,” says Miriam Ruiz, a lawyer specialized in Social Security and Immigration, who gives as an example a payroll where, at the top, 10 and a half years of contributions appear and at the bottom there are 318 days remaining, that is, almost a year.
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And, before explaining it, he issues a warning: “I can tell you that in principle the contribution period that they are going to take into account to see if you are entitled to some type of benefit or not, is the one that appears below, that is, the one that appears to you with the fewest days of contributions.” Likewise, before answering the main question, explain that part-time periods count differentlypointing out that they “are not automatically recalculated” in working life. Leaving aside this specialty of part-time periods, it already clarifies why there are still days of contributions left in your working life.
Why do they take away quoted days from your working life?
Lawyer Miriam Ruiz responds that it is due to periods of multiple employment or multiple activitythat is, “periods in which you have been registered in two or more companies on the same day or that you have been, for example, contributing at the same time in the general regime and in the self-employed regime.”
He explains it with an example: “Imagine that on October 5 you are working in the morning in a company and in the afternoon in a different company. What your work life is going to do is add two days of contributions, that is, one day for each company in which you have been working. What happens? Then Social Security is going to realize that those two days of contributions really belong to the same calendar day and it is going to make an adjustment, that is, it is going to subtract one day from your work life as contributed, which is what appears in this second table, because the Social Security criterion is that you cannot add more than one working day for each calendar day there is.
That way, for example, even if you are registered with four different companies at the same time, you would only add one working day for each calendar day. That is, I would not count you as 4 days worked that day even if you have been in four different companies, but as one.
Now, the same does not happen with regard to the amount, because this will be significantly increased if you have been working in several companies at the same time during the same period: “be very careful because one thing is that the days do not add up and another thing is that the contribution bases are not going to add up, since the latter do add up,” Ruiz clarifies.
Again, he clarifies it with an example: “Imagine that this morning your company quoted you for an amount of 50 euros and that your company this afternoon quoted you for an amount of 70 euros. Well, when you are going to access some type of benefit, the contribution base for that benefit will be calculated on 120 euros, that is, the sum of the two contribution bases.” This sum, he emphasizes, “will help you to later be recognized with a larger benefit.”