With lockdown-easing having concluded, some services segments are still affected by restrictions on operating normally, and the proportion of workers affected by furlough arrangements continues to be a majority. This is the case of the accommodation, air transport and travel agency segments where, at end-June, the reach of ERTEs was still between 70.4% and 53.7%. The very high proportion of workers protected by an ERTE in these specific services segments is in striking contrast to the 8  percentages in manufacturing industry and construction (8.9% and 4.2%, respectively). That highlights the deeply asymmetric effects of this crisis on different productive activities. In absolute terms, at the end of Q2 almost half the workers on ERTEs were in the retail and hospitality sectors. In response to this situation and to the high uncertainty over the recovery, the ERTE support measures - initially programmed to end-June - have been extended, albeit with amendments, to the end of Q3. The new conditions include the possibility of increasing Social Security exemptions in the event of a fresh outbreak of the virus, which is an explicit acknowledgement of the uncertainty surrounding the recovery. These new conditions also attempt to square the objective to continue providing support to firms and workers temporarily affected by restrictions on operating normally with the aim of providing incentives for a progressive reallocation of employment towards activities with a better future outlook.
And along with income-sustaining measures (such as the minimum living income), they will help reduce inequality in Spain. Inequality levels, which were higher at the onset of this crisis than at the start of the previous one, will probably rise further in the coming quarters, given that this crisis is affecting groups with relatively low incomes to a greater extent. Nor can we forget the need to address ongoing population ageing which, among other aspects, will most appreciably influence the behaviour of the labour market, growth dynamics and the main fiscal magnitudes in the coming decades. It is also a first-order challenge for our pension system. And, of course, the Spanish economy must be nimble and proactive so as to harness the new opportunities that arise from combating climate change and from the transition to a more sustainable economy, from the changes in the globalisation model and from the foreseeable acceleration in the digitalisation of the economy. The prompt design of a medium-term fiscal consolidation programme for gradual implementation once the crisis is behind us After the pandemic, the Spanish economy will post the highest levels of public debt in many decades, partly as a result of the necessary fiscal expansion in the short term. Accordingly, it is also necessary to design a plan to restore health to the public finances in the medium term, the application of which, in any event, will have to be postponed until the recovery is firmly rooted.