The average monthly salary jumped by 7.3% in 2023, to 2,273 euros gross. This is the highest figure since the series began in 2006, but above all we note the increase compared to the previous year, the largest since 2008, fifteen years ago, according to salary data from the Labor Force Survey (LFS). published this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Thus, the INE explains that the average salary was 2,273 euros gross per month in 2023, with an increase of 154 euros per month compared to 2022, or 7.3% more.
For its part, the median salary – an intermediate value if we classify all workers from the lowest salary to the highest salary – stood at 1,935.5 euros gross per month, “with an increase of 132. 7 euros (7.4%),” underlines the INE.
The sharp increase in the monthly salary received by the EPA may be due to several reasons. Like, for example, the higher salary increases agreed last year, due to the previous phase of high inflation, as well as the increase in the number of working hours per month carried out by workers and/or the existence of better jobs, among other reasons.
The average salary of women last year was 2,063 euros gross per month, while that of men reached 2,468 euros gross.
The INE recalls that “men were relatively more concentrated than women in high salaries”. Thus, 34% earned 2,548 euros gross per month or more in 2023, compared to 25.7% of women for example.
In low wages, the opposite happened. Nearly 40% of women had a salary of less than 1,535 euros gross per month, compared to 21% of men. Different examples of the wage gap between men and women which still exists and is explained by various inequalities in the labor market.
By branch of activity, the lowest salaries (less than 1,534.7 euros) were concentrated in 2023 in domestic employment (78.4%) and in the Agriculture, livestock, forestry sector. and fishing (61.8%). “For their part, the branches of activity with the greatest relative weight in salaries of 2,548.2 euros and more were the supply of electrical energy, gas, steam and air conditioning (66.6%), financial and insurance activities (66.4%) and Education (60.1%),” adds the National Institute of Statistics.
Concerning average salaries, the lowest in 2023 still corresponded to employment in households (1,014 euros), hotels (1,456) and agriculture and forestry. and fishing (1,561). And the highest were in the supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning (4,067 euros), financial and insurance activities (3,543) and public administration and defense. Compulsory social security (2,949).
In the Autonomous Communities, the productive structure of each region has a great influence on its salary level, recalls the INE. The communities with the highest average salary were Euskadi (2,624 euros), the Community of Madrid (2,575) and the Foral Community of Navarra (2,516). And in contrast, the lowest average salaries were observed in Extremadura (1,916 euros), the Canary Islands (1,988) and Castile-La Mancha (2,025).
