Spanish workers live, for the purposes of the goods and services that can be purchased, with the same salary as 16 years ago. In 2007, the average ordinary employee earned 19,588 euros gross per year, while in 2023 their salary amounted to 26,406 euros (34.8% more). However, in that same period consumer prices have skyrocketed by 36.1%, which has completely neutralized the wage increases that have been recorded since 2007.

This is one of the main conclusions of a report released this Wednesday by the EADA business school prepared from data from the consulting firm ICSA.. The figures come from a database of 80,000 salary records of public and private sector workers and have been obtained through surveys and consultations with online platforms, the report states.

The strong price increases registered since mid-2021 have 'eaten' the small gain in purchasing power that salaries accumulated in previous years. The devaluation of salaries has been widespread and has affected both employees and managers and middle managers.. In these last two cases, their remuneration in 2023 was 24% and 28.6% higher respectively than in 2007, well below the inflation accumulated since then.

If we focus on the most recent evolution, the average remuneration of an employee in Spain stood at 26,406 euros per year in 2023, 8.8% more than in 2022.. This increase doubles that registered in 2022 and is the largest since the outbreak of the financial crisis. EADA explains this rise by the increase in the minimum wage, the effects of collective bargaining, the modernization of employment and the demands of the market in certain positions and sectors.

The salaries of ordinary workers have grown especially in small companies — where they increased by 12.2% — and in medium-sized companies (13.3%), compared to 8% in large companies, according to EADA data. In any case, the average remuneration in large firms (29,706 euros) is 25% higher than that received by employees of small companies.

If we ascend the chain of hierarchies, the salary of middle managers stands at 43,062 euros gross per year, 3.8% below the 2022 level. The authors of the report attribute this loss of salary to a trend to reduce middle management and the creation of technical positions that will be accentuated in the future by the technological revolution.

Regarding management positions, salaries are rising especially strongly in large companies, where they reach an average of 117,713 euros gross per year, 6.5% more than in 2022. Managers of large firms pocket up to 66% more than those of small companies and their remuneration is four times that of a rank-and-file employee.

Industry and banking gain purchasing power

At the sector level, the only workers who have improved their purchasing power are those in industry, banking and insurance.. Remunerations in the industrial sector have grown by 50% since 2007, while in banking and insurance they increased by 39.4%, two figures that beat the price increase registered since then.

On the other hand, in the rest of the activities the loss of purchasing power is very great.. In services, salaries are only 5.6% higher than in 2007, an increase similar to that registered in commerce and tourism (7%).. Transportation recorded salary increases of 17.2% in that time, while construction saw increases of 22.8%, far from the 36% that consumer prices have increased since that date.

If the situation is analyzed by territory, the only autonomous communities in which employees earn more than the national average are Madrid (27,987 euros per month), Catalonia (26,966) and Navarra (26,707).. On the other side of the spectrum appear those from Castilian-Leonese (22,683), those from Rioja (22,552) and those from Extremadura (21,981).

Last year, the Spanish labor market demonstrated its strength not only in private companies, but also in a public sector especially driven by the growth of personnel at the service of the State.. Whether at the state, regional or local level, one in every seven employees in Spain works for public administrations, whose volume of employees reached a new maximum in the historical series in 2023, exceeding 2.98 million members.

The public sector gained ground over the private sector in creating jobs last year. According to Social Security affiliation data, one in every five jobs generated between December 2022 and the same month in 2023 originated under the protection of public administrations, a proportion higher than that recorded a year earlier, when one in seven Jobs created were public. During the year that just ended, the administrations gained a total of 100,939 employees, which represents an annual increase of 3.5% in the number of workers. For its part, employment in private companies grew by 2.5% to exceed 17.85 million employees.

Specifically, in the last year the dynamism of job creation in the State stands out, which has gained 32,282 new workers. These incorporations have translated into an increase of 8% in the state workforce, an increase that triples in relative terms the increase in the volume of employees recorded in the private company.. The regional administrations also added a total of 68,662, according to Social Security affiliation data for December.

However, the weight of the increase in personnel is less marked at the regional level – it represents an increase of 3.9% – since the communities bring together a greater volume of employed people. In fact, almost two out of every three public employees work in the regional administrations, whose workforce is especially swelled by teachers and health personnel – these groups represent respectively 32.2% and 42.1% of the regional staff.. For their part, local administrations (city councils, provincial councils, town councils and island councils) employ one in four public workers, specifically a total of 733,400 people, a figure that has barely changed in the last year.

The concentration of teaching and especially health personnel in the autonomous administration means that women predominate among employees at this territorial level, since both sectors are the two with the greatest female presence – women respectively occupy 66.3% and 76.9% of the positions. In fact, two out of every three workers serving communities are women, while in the system as a whole they represent slightly less than half of the total number of employees (47.3%).. On the other hand, in the State workforce, the predominance of men in the Security Forces and Corps reduces the proportion of women. According to the latest data from the Central Personnel Registry, they represent only 18.1% of the personnel in the National Police, 13% in the Armed Forces and 9.5% in the Civil Guard.

Not just officials

Not all public employees are civil servants. There are also labor personnel, that is, people who work for the administration after having signed a contract.. Although with differences, at both the state and regional levels career civil servants predominate, representing respectively 78.8% and 47% of employees, according to the Statistical Bulletin of personnel at the service of public administrations, published this week by the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Public Service. In the communities, the proportion is reduced especially due to the preponderance of labor personnel in public universities – 58.5% of workers are hired in this way.

The bulletin updated this week, which compiles data until July from the Central Personnel Registry, also incorporates, as a novelty compared to previous editions, personnel in training or internships “with the aim of providing a more complete global image” of public employment, according to what they defend the authors in the document itself. This novelty reflects the existence of 4,831 workers in training in the ministries, most of them people who have passed and obtained a place in an opposition but must take a course before joining.

Alleviate the structural deficit

UGT echoed this week the data collected in the bulletin published by Public Function and evaluated them positively, attributing the increase in personnel in the service of the State to the voluminous public employment offers approved by the Government and negotiated by the unions to alleviate the structural personnel deficit. “The impact of these pacts has managed to reverse the progressive destruction of public employment in the General State Administration between 2010 and 2016, which caused a deficit of human resources in many services and the overall aging of the workforce,” the union assesses.

However, the state administration still has the challenge of continuing to renew its workforce.. According to the Central Personnel Registry, 20.3% of ministry employees are 60 years old or older, which means they will retire in just over five years. UGT also asks for “speed” both in announcing positions and in making the appointments of new public employees, although they foresee a greater reduction in the personnel deficit as the pending selective processes are resolved in the coming months.

The inflation epidemic that is now in its final stages has left workers' pockets full of holes. The loss of purchasing power has been significant and widespread, but salaries are slowly beginning to see the light. However, there are tens of thousands of workers who are being left behind. These are employees of public contracts, workers on the payroll of private companies that provide services to the public administration.. We are talking about gardeners, cleaning staff, security, telecare…. Services whose conditions are usually very precarious from the start and which are coming out especially badly from this crisis.

The reason? a regulation that limits to the maximum the ability of companies to pass on to the administrations the increases in costs they suffer, especially salaries.. This situation has managed to unite the employers and the unions into a common front against the administration, personified in this case in the Ministry of Finance.. The two parties have called on the Government on several occasions to put an end to this situation.. In fact, the employers' association refused to vote in favor of a new interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) if the problem was not resolved.. And so he did.

The rules of contention are the deindexation law, approved in 2015 and regulated in 2017, and the public contracts law. This law was introduced to prevent public prices from being linked to the CPI, but it also vetoed price reviews that were not predetermined in service contracts, except in exceptional cases.. In other words, if during the time that the public contract is in force the company has to raise salaries because the SMI increases or the workers sign a new agreement with better remuneration, the company cannot pass on this increase in costs in any way. to the administration. Contract law develops these exceptions, which are limited to highly valued situations that rarely occur.

The consequences of this limitation, which has been in force since 2017, have now begun to be felt strongly for two reasons.. The first is the strong and rapid increases in the minimum wage approved since 2018.. The SMI has risen 54% since then, and it affects more and more workers. Companies are required by law to pay their workers more, but the administration does not cover that cost. The employers allege that increases in the SMI can cause losses or even the bankruptcy of companies in certain sectors and territories.. Especially SMEs and the self-employed, who cannot plan from one year to the next what the increase in costs derived from the SMI will be.

The second derivative of the indexation law is that it generates enormous difficulties in negotiating agreements. The tenders tend to be long, they are often closed for periods of more than four years, so the salary increases signed in the new agreements cannot be passed on. If companies want to raise salaries to offset part of the impact of inflation, they have to use their own resources. “There are four years of frozen salary because companies usually go through termination procedures justified in the agreements,” says Raúl Olmos, deputy in the union action secretariat of CCOO.

The result is a perfect cocktail of precariousness that ends up translating into frozen salaries, reductions in staff, hours or lack of replacements when a worker goes on leave to compensate for increases in business costs.. “In the end the company absorbs part of the increase in cost with the profit margin, but for the most part they tend to lay off or reduce hours,” says Olmos.

“When it comes to negotiating, our hands are tied”

This reality is confirmed by the contract workers themselves.. Marcos (pseudonym) works on the street cleaning contract of the Brunete City Council (Madrid). He tells 20 minutes that the salaries they receive are low and the hiring document is quite old, so they have barely seen salary reviews. “Collective negotiations are an ordeal, when it comes to negotiating our hands are tied,” he comments.

Salary increases have been meager in this time. “Last year we had a single non-consolidable payment and in recent years increases that have not reached 2%. In salaries of 15,000 euros it is very little money,” he adds.. “I have colleagues who often did not have gas to go to work. They have had to ask the company for advances,” he adds.. Until recently, wage freezes had barely been noticed. However, since June 2021, consumer prices have risen 13%, four times more than they grew in the previous two and a half years.

“It is not normal that the public service has an agreement to raise the salaries of civil servants, that the salaries of politicians rise every year and that they punish without salary increases the personnel who work in private companies doing public work,” he explains, for For his part, Javier Gómez Ochoa, secretary of Trade Union Action and Collective Negotiation of CCOO del Hábitat in Madrid. “The consequences are strikes, layoffs, conflicts, insecurity, accidents… everything that comes with having a contract in a precarious situation in which you cannot invest because you do not recover that money,” adds Gómez Ochoa in conversation with this newspaper.

“In any town, administration, county council you go to, whether it is hiring the ambulance service, home help services…. “Companies provide increasingly worse services because they are more cut-back and they know that there are no price reviews,” says Moisés Torres, federal secretary of Community Services at UGT Madrid, in conversation with 20minutos.

Treasury refuses to change the law

Within the Government, who has the key to ending the deindexation law is the Ministry of Finance led by the first vice president María Jesús Montero. But the ministry in charge of preparing the country's public accounts has no intention of introducing changes beyond the exception that has already been approved for construction contracts due to the increase in the cost of materials.

The minister's position is clear. “We are not going to make any issue that causes the cost of public services to increase in relation to what we are currently providing.”. Nor does it seem logical that the increases in the interprofessional minimum wage fall on the public accounts that all citizens pay,” he said a little over a month ago in statements to the media.

In addition, it must be taken into account that Spain faces an imminent fiscal adjustment process to clean up its accounts, battered after the great recession, the pandemic crisis and the war in Ukraine.. The Executive has a very limited budget margin to increase spending. The revaluation of pensions, the increase in the salary of civil servants and the extension of anti-crisis aid will take away the scarce spending margin that remains free for 2024. In fact, it cannot be ruled out at all that Spain deviates somewhat above its deficit target for this year.

The second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, appeared this Monday at the Labor Commission of the Congress of Deputies to present what will be the main lines of action of the Government in labor matters throughout the legislature. Among the pending tasks, the leader of Sumar has highlighted the Executive's commitment to reduce the working day to 37.5 hours per week, a measure that has indicated that she will negotiate with the social agents, but that it will go ahead whether or not with the approval of the businessmen.

“We are going to carry out a reduction in the working day to 37.5 hours per week without a salary reduction,” said Díaz, in reference to the point agreed between PSOE and Sumar in their government agreement.. The agreement between both groups says goodbye to the 40-hour week, first setting the maximum legal working day at 38.5 hours per week in 2024 and finally lowering it to the promised 37.5 hours in 2025.. “Reducing the working day will also serve to improve productivity,” defended the minister, who explained that this initiative will be addressed together with the improvement of time control.. According to the leader of Sumar, the regulation of the daily registration of the day is “susceptible to being subtly reformed”, as also stated in the coalition pact with the PSOE.

To materialize the reduction in working hours, Díaz has emphasized his department's willingness to negotiate with employers and unions within the framework of social dialogue, as well as with different political groups.. However, the head of Labor has warned that, if the employers do not agree, the reduction will be agreed only with the workers' representatives. “We are going to try an agreement, which I would like to be tripartite; if it cannot be, it will be bipartite, but we are going to do it,” he stated, after ensuring that the initiative would benefit more than 12 million workers in the private sector.. “Social dialogue is what is important, then there will be an agreement or not,” he insisted.

“No one is saying that working hours cannot be reduced; in fact, there are sectors with more productivity that have less working hours,” responded the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, during his participation in the Tourism Innovation-Hotusa Explora forum.. “Not all sectors are the same, that is why what we propose is that it be done sector by sector, at each table, which is how it has always been done,” he added.

The CEOE was already left out of the agreement signed last week by the Ministry of Labor and the unions to raise the minimum wage by 5% in 2024 to 1,134 gross euros per month in 14 full-time payments. The PP spokesperson on the Labor Commission, Alma Alfonso, has criticized precisely that the Government did not get the support of businessmen. “He has made it clear again with the increase in the minimum wage without taking into account those who pay the payroll, he ignores them, he neither listens to them nor they care what happens to them,” the popular deputy has disfigured Díaz.. “It's time to get to work, recover social dialogue,” he asked.

“We did not have to raise the minimum wage with social dialogue and we do it. “I am very grateful to the social agents, including the Spanish employers' association, for not getting up from any table,” said Díaz, who described as a “trap proposal” the approach put on the table by the CEOE to raise the minimum wage. “Sometimes employers' organizations dedicate themselves to something else that is far from the interests they should represent,” he criticized.

The minister has assured that the increase in the minimum wage has been the “main tool” used by the Government to redistribute the wealth generated within companies, given that since 2018 this income has increased by 54%. “As a country it was a moral duty, because the minimum wage we had in 2018 was a shame,” he stated.. “The minimum wage has been a powerful instrument to reduce inequality, the gender wage gap and working poverty,” he added, clarifying that the increase recently agreed with the unions will be accompanied by a change in personal income tax “to ensure that everything “The salary increase goes entirely to the people who earn it.”

Reform dismissal

In addition to reducing the working day, Díaz has also set the reform of the Workers' Statute as an objective for this legislature – for which he has announced the creation of a working commission with experts in the coming weeks – as well as the dismissal, to adapt it to the European Social Charter. The leader of Sumar has stressed that the dismissal must be “reparative and dissuasive.” “It is essential to eliminate automatic dismissal due to sudden disability,” he added as a milestone for a legislature in which he also plans for the Scholarship Statute to reach the Congress of Deputies “immediately.”

Another pending task is the modification of the unemployment benefit, which Podemos recently overturned in Congress. Díaz has stressed his intention to recover a good part of the points included in the failed reform, such as the increase in the amount, coverage for those under 45 years of age without family responsibilities and for temporary agricultural workers, the elimination of the month's wait to start to collect it and its compatibility with work for a period of up to 180 days. The head of Labor has also committed to extending maternity and paternity leave to 20 weeks and to pay four weeks of parental leave for child care.

Likewise, the minister has stressed the need to continue reducing unemployment, despite celebrating the strength of the Spanish labor market, which closed 2023 with record employment figures.. “Unemployment is, along with housing, the main problem of our country,” he stated.. “There is still much to do but we are taking steps in the right direction,” he concluded.

In 2023, self-consumption returned from the extraordinarily high levels at which the energy crisis placed it in 2022 to a more moderate path, which if the 'boom' of two years ago is excluded, continues the upward path since there is data. Last year was the first in the historical series with fewer new installations -113,000 less than in 2022- and less new installed power than the previous year -700 megawatts less- and in which some effects of the enormous growth that the sector during the energy price crisis, when industry and households sought to save on the electricity bill by installing solar panels: the poor quality of some installations and the “intrusion” in an activity that had to grow at a forced pace and in the which now seems to be settling back into normality.

The quality of some installations and the “intrusion” in the sector is one of the four “concerns” that self-consumption leaves in 2023, due to an exceptional increase in activity in 2022 that forced many companies – the field of electricity, for example- to adapt to the demand for self-consumption, with workers who were not adequately trained. APPA Renovables, the main association in the sector, does not want to talk about a “bubble” of self-consumption in 2022, because it affirms that investment continued, but recognizes that we can speak of a “boom”, which led to some installations “not being made”. in the best possible way,” explains the president of APPA Autoconsumo, Jon Macías.

At the moment, there is no data on employment in the self-consumption sector in 2023 and the latest available are those for 2022 when, in line with the explosion of self-consumption, it experienced notable growth, with more than double the number of jobs created than in 2021.. With the slowdown in 2023, the sector assumes that employment data will also suffer, because in 2022 there were companies that also hired more to be able to meet the demand that has subsequently relaxed or due to concentration operations, the absorption of some companies by others that are already registering.

Fewer new installations than in 2022

APPA Renovables has presented this Monday the Annual Photovoltaic Self-Consumption Report for 2023 which, as expected for months, confirms a drop in installations and installed power compared to 2022. According to data provided by its partner companies in the fields of manufacturing, distribution and installation of solar panels and other key components, last year there were 127,304 new self-consumption installations, a drop of 113,000 fewer installations than the previous year, which APPA explains by the gradual disappearance of European aid, the rise in interest rates and the moderation of electricity prices.

In 2022, in the midst of the energy price crisis, 240,344 new installations appeared in Spain, almost 174,000 more than the previous year and ending a progression that in the year of greatest growth – between 2020 and 2021 – had not reached 40,000 new ones. annual installations. Last year, the pace returned to normal, with many fewer self-consumption installations than in 2022 -113,040- but almost double that in 2021, in a behavior that the APPA Self-consumption section relates more to the “disproportionate growth” of 2022 than with a change in trend.

Residential self-consumption continued to be more numerous than industrial consumption, although in terms of installed power, it was the other way around, because the installations on the roofs are much smaller than those placed in industrial premises. Of the 127,304 new installations in 2023, 111,795 were in homes -105,453 less than in 2022 and 58,125 more than in 2021- and there were 15,509 new industrial installations -7,587 less than in 2022 and 2,742 than in 2021-. In accumulated figures, there are currently 480,000 self-consumption installations in Spain, 410,000 residential and 70,000 industrial.

The size of installations in homes was similar to that of 2022 in 2023, 4.7 kilowatts, with an average cost of 7,085 euros. The savings in the electricity rate that they caused are equivalent to 14% of that investment, which APPA estimates would have taken seven years to recover.. In the industrial field, the average installation was 91 kilowatts, 30% more than the 70kw in 2022 and an average cost of 69,000 euros.

3% of demand and wasted electricity

In relation to installed power, in 2023 there were 1.9 new gigawatts -2.6GW in 2022 and 1.1 in 2021-, which together brought the annual production of electricity with self-consumption to 7.2 GWh in 2023, 59% more than in 2022 and that for APPA puts within reach the goal of 19 GW in 2030 that the Government seeks.

Thanks to this, self-consumption was able to cover 3% of national demand in 2023, 1.2% more than in 2022 and continuing the upward trend since data became available.. With 7.1GW currently installed, APPA emphasizes that electricity generation with self-consumption exceeds generation in nuclear power plants. As a difference, this second is available on a regular basis throughout the day, while self-consumption, like all photovoltaic and also wind energy, is only available in certain circumstances – when it is sunny, in this case.

To use the full potential of self-consumption as an electricity generator that covers part of the demand, it is necessary to develop storage, such as batteries, which also fell in 2023 because 128 MWh of storage were installed, 69% less than in 2022.. Added to this is another “concern” of APPA Renovables – along with regulation and “low electricity demand” – which has to do with the amount of electricity generated with self-consumption that is wasted because it cannot be fed into the grid.

According to its annual report, of the 7.1GW of electricity generated by self-consumption in 2023, 1.6GW, that is, 0.7%, was wasted due to “regulatory and technical barriers”. “The energy used is 82″ of the potential, with the remaining 18% being wasted: 131 million euros that we are wasting,” says the report.