2023-06-05 16:13:37
Salary and productivity should go hand in hand, like a well-matched couple, but nevertheless, their paths are gradually separating and the gap between the two is widening. This is stated by the IX Adecco Monitor on Salaries published this Monday, which questions the sustainability of current salary levels in Spain, which, despite being reputed to be among the lowest in Europe, are far removed from the competitiveness of the companies.
While remuneration in Spain continues to grow and stood at 1,822 euros gross per month in 2022 for the first time in history, 71 euros more than a year ago, productivity continues to be one of the pending subjects and its level of efficiency has been cut 4.5 percentage points in the last year, according to Adecco data.
What’s more, Spain is the country that exhibits the worst evolution of productivity in the entire European Union in the last five years. Specifically, this variable has fallen by 4.3% during the years 2017-2022, the biggest cut of the 27 and far from the 35.6% increase in productivity that Ireland experienced in this period, compared to the 18.6% registered in Poland. and the 16% achieved by Hungary. This means that to reach the same level of production, more employees are now needed or that the same workforce produces less than before.
Due to this loss of competitiveness, Spain has fallen five places in just one year and is eleventh in Europe as the country with the highest average salary in proportion to its average productivity. Here, the average salary is equivalent to 37.2% of productivity (understood as real GDP per employed person), well below Germany (50.2%), Bulgaria (48.0%) and Austria (43.2%). ), which are in the lead. In contrast, Ireland (21.7%) and Luxembourg (24.4%) have the lowest percentages. The study explains that, in general, the countries with the smallest proportions tend to be those where productivity grows the fastest.
In this way, Adecco points out that in the last ten years there has been a gap between the rise in wages and the rise in productivity in the countries of the European Union and warns that sustainable wage growth over long periods is only possible when there is significant growth in productivity. In this regard, the report highlights that the decoupling of wages from labor productivity explains why the labor share of income (the share of labor compensation in GDP) in many countries remains substantially lower than it was in the decade. from 1990.
Sharp rise in minimum wage
Javier Blasco, director of The Adecco Group Institute, warns that “an increase in wages, to be sustainable, must be accompanied by an increase in production”, since, otherwise, the increase in remuneration is done at the expense of reducing commercial margins, which “implies less investment capacity and makes it difficult to recover productivity in a kind of vicious circle”.
On the other hand, the average salary in Spain is aligned with the level of wealth in its economy. Spain, although it has fallen one position in the last year, has the fourth highest relationship between the average salary and the GDP per inhabitant. Spanish remuneration stands at 78.5% of its per capita wealth, a percentage that is only surpassed by Germany (81.8%), Italy (80.5%) and France (80%).
The position of the average Spanish wage in relation to GDP per capita is therefore higher than that of Belgium (76.8%), Austria (71.9%), Denmark (67.3%), Holland (66.9%), %), Poland (65%) and Portugal (59.5%), in addition to 18 other countries. The two lowest ratios correspond to Luxembourg (37.4%) and Ireland (37.3%).
Similarly, Spain is the eighth country in Europe in which the minimum wage, located at 1,080 euros per month divided into 14 payments, is higher in proportion to the average wage and stands at 59.3% after the strong increases experienced in recent years, 2.6 percentage points from Slovenia (61.9%), which is the country with the highest ratio.
There are only four autonomous communities where the minimum wage is equivalent to less than 60% of the average remuneration (Madrid, the Basque Country, Navarra and Catalonia), which is the objective that the Government had set itself to comply with the recommendations of the Social Charter. European.
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