2024-01-12 13:23:15
The Spanish left-wing government announced on Friday a new 5% increase in the minimum wage, benefiting nearly 2.5 million people, despite opposition from employers. This increase, which is part of an agreement signed with the unions, brings the Spanish minimum monthly salary, paid in the country over 14 months, to 1,134 euros gross. This increase is higher than the level of inflation, which reached 3.5% on average last year in Spain.
This increase, applied retroactively to January 1, represents a gross gain of 54 euros per month. It will benefit “nearly 2.5 million workers, especially young people and women“, underlined socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The head of the Spanish government, reappointed in mid-November for a new four-year term at the end of a hotly contested election, pledged during the campaign to continue the increase in the minimum wage initiated since his arrival in power in 2018.
But in recent weeks the executive has come up once morest the reluctance of the main employers’ organization, the CEOE, which wanted a lower increase than that put on the table by the executive and the unions. In the absence of an agreement with the employers, the Sánchez government resolved to negotiate only with the two main employee unions, the UGT and the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO). “I very much regret the attitude of the Spanish employers, who favored interests having nothing to do with the defense of our country», Reacted Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz, refuting the idea that this revaluation would penalize the Spanish economy.
«The Bank of Spain itself has demonstrated, with supporting data, that the increase in the minimum wage benefits the entire economy», added the minister, also leader of Sumar, a radical left party allied with the socialists within the coalition government. In a press release, the UGT for its part welcomed progress “essential to improve purchasing power” Household. “Raising the minimum wage reduces inequality» and improves «activity and employment», echoed on the social network X the leader of the CCOO, Unai Sordo.
According to the executive, the Spanish minimum wage has increased by a total of 54% since Pedro Sánchez came to power in 2018. It was then 735 euros per month, one of the lowest levels in Europe. The government’s stated objective is to eventually increase the minimum wage to 60% of the average Spanish salary, which amounted to 2,128 euros gross per month in 2023, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
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