2023-10-25 14:14:23
The employers already warned it yesterday, in unison. CEOE, Promotion of Work y Cepymeand the association representing the self-employed ATA: the programmatic agreement of PSOE and Sumar “will have a negative impact on the activity of companies (…) and, therefore, for the economy growing and the job creation in Spain”. And this Wednesday, he signed it on mass consumption sector (supermarkets, clothing chains, big trade…), specifically: “The competitiveness of the Spanish economy is going to suffer,” warned the president of AECOC, Javier Campo. “It is impossible to compete when you have low productivity and high labor costs,” she explained.
According to data from this entity, one of the largest business associations in the country and one of the main representatives of the mass consumption sector, this industry accounts for 25% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) national. That is to say, a negative impact on the accounts of its largest companies would have a notable impact on the country’s economy.
PSOE and Sumar agree to extend banking and energy taxes and toughen corporate taxes
Thus, after his conferences at the 38th AECOC Congress of Large Consumption – which is being held this Wednesday and Thursday in Zaragoza – the president and the general director of the association, José María Bonmatíhave conveyed to the media their opinion about the possibility of the working day being progressively reduced to 35 hours per week or that the minimum salary continue to increase.
“There is a sharp drop in the hours worked per employee, this, in a context of low productivity like the one Spain has, is going to seriously affect the country’s competitiveness, and this is a scenario that in the medium term will It will take its toll,” said Campo, who took the opportunity to remember the attempt he already made France years ago about it, just when he was a manager at Carrefour. “The arrival of 35 hours in France did not work well, productivity fell tremendously,” he warned. “For the mass consumption sector, like the rest of the economy, it is a situation that is going to place us in a very strong loss of competitiveness“, has added.
In his opinion, tackling the productivity problem would have to come first through increase of the workforce in scientific and technological areas through the FP, the increase in the average size of Spanish companiesthe reducing housing costs or the increase in the employability rate (“only 55% of people of working age do it,” he exemplified).
The keys to the agreement between PSOE and Sumar: from the 37.5-hour day and changes in dismissal to new birth permits
Reputational effect
Especially because, according to the data on the table, Spanish productivity is 24% lower than the eurozone average. In short, he has concluded that forcing such labor-intensive companies to pay their employees more in exchange for fewer hours worked, “is a bad way to approach the future.”
It is also, Bonmatí added, because of the place in which it places the company and the entrepreneur in this debate. “They are going to incorporate a part of input ideological bias, which reputationally puts the company in the spotlight,” lamented the general director of AECOC. He has taken the opportunity to remember that there are other aspects of this agreement between parties with which they do not feel comfortable, such as, for example, the intensification of environmental requirements o to higher tax pressure.
Beyond that, both representatives of the mass consumption sector have been convinced that the price escalation He would be close to his ceiling by now, if he hasn’t already touched it. Its forecast is that in 2024 the growth rate of the general inflation (which would be, according to their estimates, at 3.6% on average), but this slowdown is especially noticeable in food terrain.
#mass #consumption #sector #attacks #reduction #working #hours #competitiveness #Spanish #economy #suffer