The Government has approved the prior procedure to determine what cases may be eligible for reducing coefficients for performing exceptionally arduous, toxic, dangerous or unhealthy activities.
What will be valued to allow the withdrawal earlier
The procedure approved by the Council of Ministers is designed for activities that present high rates of morbidity or mortality and in which it is not possible to sufficiently improve working conditions. That is to say, it is not enough for a job to be hard or tiring. There must be an objective basis that accredits a special arduousness or dangerousness and, furthermore, a real difficulty in neutralizing that risk through other means.
This points directly to sectors and tasks where physical wear and tear, risk, or insalubrity form a structural part of the work, not to any profession with a social perception of toughness.
The 52-year limit still stands
The Social Security makes it clear that the application of reduction coefficients cannot lead, as a general rule, to accessing the retirement pension with an age lower than 52 years. That legal floor is key because it is often presented as if special early retirement had no limit, and that is not the case.
Put another way: even in especially tough activities, the system establishes a general minimum.
Not all jobs age the same
Because it connects with a very widespread feeling: not all jobs age those who do them equally. There are trades that cannot be performed at advanced ages under the same conditions, and the system has been adjusting some special regimes for years precisely because of this. The novelty now is that the Government has better articulated the procedure to recognize these assumptions.
That opens expectations in sectors that consider that their working conditions justify an advancement of the retirement age. But the key will be how the procedure is applied and what activities end up passing the technical and regulatory filter.
An important step
It can be said that the system has taken an important step to broaden or review the assumptions of early retirement in especially arduous activities: the measure seeks to address situations of real wear and tear and accredited risk.