1.13 million workers have wages frozen in the year of record inflation

• ALEJANDRA OLCESE

  @AlejandraOlcese

Updated on Saturday, December 11, 2021-01: 55

• Share on Facebook

• Share on Twitter

• Send by email

View 2 comments

The workers regulated by the agreement accumulate an average salary increase of 1.49% so far this year at the end of November, but there is 15.4% of the total that has had to face the year with the highest inflation rises of the last three decades with your salary frozen or even reduced.

This is clear from the latest

published by the Ministry of

this Friday, which includes that a total of

15.4% of the 7.33 million wage earners in the country who are governed by an agreement.

The percentage of workers with frozen salaries has thus gone from 0.4% in 2019 to 5.9% in 2020 and now stands at 15.4%.

In total, two companies have applied salary cuts to 239 workers, while 94,023 companies have kept their employees' salaries unchanged despite inflation pressing their pockets.

The rest of the companies that are also regulated by agreement have raised the salary of their employees, although for the moment in a moderate way: 1.49% on average.

These slight increases in wages are leading the unions to demand

since families have to face prices 5.6% higher than those in the country a year ago, and accumulate a loss of purchasing power of about 9,000 million so far this year, according to calculations by

"The problem is that in 2021 the salary increase agreed and registered so far has continued to decrease compared to 2020. Since the beginning of the pandemic there has been a significant increase in inflation, however, the health crisis and the economic effects associated with it have caused a drop in the agreed salary increases, fundamentally in business-related agreements, "says the Confederal Secretariat for Union Action of CCOO in the report

to which EL MUNDO has had access.

In this way, "if the inflation forecasts for this year are fulfilled, we would find ourselves again before a scenario of a clear loss of purchasing power", denounces the

union

These pressures and social unrest have already led some companies such as Mercadona to announce a salary increase for its 93,000 employees in accordance with the closing of the 2021 CPI, which will be around 5%, for next year.

The question is which movements like this will contribute to the generation of the so-called 'second-round effects' on inflation.

CENTRAL BANKS REQUEST MODERATION

The

and the

have long been warning of the risk of two effects that could be harmful to the economy.

One, that the rise in prices - which is mainly driven by the supply shock that has occurred after the Covid and the rise in energy prices - leads to equivalent wage increases;

and two, that companies cannot bear the narrowing of margins due to the rise in costs and decide to transfer it to prices.

Both effects would contribute to creating more inflation and the economy would thus fall into a very dangerous inflationary spiral, which would force central banks to tighten monetary policy earlier than expected.

This in turn poses a risk to economic recovery, especially given the high indebtedness of the public and private sectors, and could further delay the recovery of pre-pandemic levels of economic activity.

Although to date the salary increases are moderate, it is worrying that there are companies that follow this path and decide to raise salaries strongly next year, in addition to the fact that there are many companies in the country that are not regulated by agreement and whose decision on salaries is not it can be neither measured nor known in real time.

CONSTRUCTION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS ,;

THE BIGGEST CLIMBS

The increases have not been homogeneous in all sectors.

The agreements of the information and communications sector, to which many telecommunications companies adhere, are those that have agreed to a higher salary increase so far this year, of 3.30%;

followed by construction, with a revaluation of 2.40%.

Salaries in

also rose more than the average

and salaries in the education sector (+ 2.02%).

These are the sectors in which, in general terms, employment has performed better so far this year.

On the contrary, real estate activities are those in which the freezing of salaries has been more common, and there have also been sectors with very modest salary variations: + 0.65% in financial and insurance activities, + 0.73% in Public Administration and defense and mandatory Social Security, + 0.81% in hospitality or + 0.99% in household activities as employers of domestic staff and producers of goods and services for their own use.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• Spain

• Coronavirus

• Covid 19

• economy

• HBPR

Covid-19New traffic light: "The general message should be that we have not overcome the virus and we are not returning to normal"

CancerCatalonia will not refer more proton therapy patients abroad: "I wish that no one has to go through what we have gone through"

CommerceSpain has lost 7,000 exporting companies due to the pandemic

See links of interest

• Last News

• 2022 business calendar

• Home THE WORLD today

• Holidays 2021

• Podcast Economia

• How to do

• Croatia - Spain, live

• 1. FC Cologne - FC Augsburg

• Genoa - Sampdoria

• Barça - Real Madrid

• Mallorca - Celta de Vigo