The residency requirement for unemployment benefits and consequences of travelling abroad

Abstract

Generally, unemployment benefits require residence in the country for both application and for maintenance of the benefit. What has come to be known as the "territorialization" of the unemployment benefit, ie., clauses admitting the requirement of residence or ties to the labour market of the country that pays the benefit. Thus, the change of residence to a different country is usually a cause of termination of the benefit. Traditionally, however, the regulation of unemployment benefit in Spain has not clearly drawn the distinction between mere temporary journeys or stays in a different country and the change of residence to a different country. As in many other occasions, having an indeterminate legal concept, the jurisprudence has had to determine the concept in its rules of law and only recently the solution has been formalized by Law 1/2014. This paper conducts a critical analysis of the historical overview of the legislation and case law, as well as the current situation and proposes some alternative interpretations in its findings.