2023-05-09 00:02:17
Tuesday, May 9, 2023, 00:02
The average gross salary in Spain reached 2,086 euros in 2021, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE). A figure that, beyond the personal circumstances of each one, does not allow us to easily reach the end of the month, especially in the current scenario of skyrocketing prices.
However, Spain does not have a problem of low wages. Or at least not the most important. This is what Santiago Niño Becerra believes, who believes that one of the main drags on the Spanish economy is “its low productivity”. Which is, in his opinion, the main reason that wages are not higher.
It is a theory many times defended by the Catalan economist media, very active in social networks. A few days ago he exposed it again on Twitter. “I think THE problem for ESP is not low wages but low productivity – which leads to low wages – low value GDP structure, and tax fraud,” he wrote.
The productivity of the economy is fundamentally determined by the relationship between the number of hours worked and the value of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Niño Becerra recalls -in another of his Twitter threads- that there are currently 5% more people employed than in 2019, “with only 3% more hours worked, then productivity falls.”
The great weight of tourism
Niño Becerra reflects on the fact that 65% of Spanish GDP growth last year “was generated by tourism, a sector with low productivity.” «And wages have not recovered the purchasing power they have lost. If the goal is to reduce the unemployment rate, that’s fine, but nothing else,” he says.
The Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Ramón Llull University believes that productivity increases “with organizational improvements and investment in technology. And most of those who receive a salary in a company have little to decide about that… ».
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