The situation of the self-employed in Spain is delicate and economic policy is not helping to improve it.
Our country closed 2022 with a gain of only five self-employed workers and has started this year with a loss of 20,800 in a single month.
The most affected are the businesses: up to 215 are forced to close every day, unable to bear the rise in costs and the drop in income.
Between the increase in prices and the increase in the price of energy, which the war in Ukraine has led to peaks h
Historically, the group already carried a significant weight that has now been aggravated by the increase in the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI) approved yesterday by the Council of Ministers.
The rise in the SMI is a measure that most European countries are applying with the purpose of cushioning the fall in the purchasing power of workers with fewer resources, after an escalation in inflation that has raised the price of food and energy to unsustainable levels.
However,
launch it with its back to the employers, without a serious evaluation of the costs and with a speed that can only be explained by electoral reasons
It will only erode its positive impact by eroding the job market and putting the toll on small businesses.
The government has justified
the rise of 8% of the SMI in the need to bring Spain closer to the recommendations of the European Social Charter
-which stipulates that it reaches 60% of the average salary-, but has not offered explanations about the speed at which the salary floor has increased: 47% during this legislature, that is, 344 euros more per month, up to 1,080, and with the promise of raising it again before the elections.
Such a fast pace is irresponsible, because it can be detrimental in an economy like Spain's,
The only one in the EU that has not recovered pre-pandemic levels
and which is missing two key ingredients to grease the benefit of the rise in the SMI: high levels of both employment and productivity.
As various analysts have already warned, in the current context of unemployment and slowdown, such a drastic and rapid increase could end up preventing job creation.
Neither does the president's efforts to demonize the business community help - when announcing the rise of the SMI he spoke of the "feast of those above" - nor his zero effort to integrate it into a three-way dialogue, which could have resulted in a more solid pact , capable of improving the situation of workers without destabilizing the economy.
On the other hand, the Government continues on the path of discouraging private initiative.
The abandonment of the self-employed is only one more proof of an electoral strategy that can be very harmful in the long term.
In an open economy it is the development of private initiative, within a free market but balanced with the need to sustain the welfare state, which enriches society and allows its progress.
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