The Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, activated on Tuesday the increase in the minimum wage for 2025. The department convened the advisory commission, with new members, to prepare a report in which it recommends what increase the government should apply to maintain the minimum wage. an income equal to 60% of the minimum income as stipulated in the European Social Charter signed by Spain. However, the Labor Party leader went further and claimed “that there is no loss of purchasing power“, that is why it set the evolution of the CPI as the minimum threshold for the increase. According to INE data in October, prices increased by 2.1% on average during the first eleven month of the year while interannual inflation was 2.6%.
The SMI was set at 1,134 euros per month in 14 payments at the beginning of the year, after the Executive reached an agreement with representatives of CCOO and UGT to which neither CEOE nor Cepyme were parties, because Labor had not responded to both demands of businessmen: bonuses on agricultural contributions and the modification of the deindexation law by which salary increases cannot be reflected in the public contracts in force of companies, which directly affects the services they provide to municipalities across the country. country. Thus, the increase equivalent to the change in the CPI would result in 23.8 euros more per month (if we use 2.1%) or 29.4 euros (if we use 2.6 %) for which the minimum wage would be between 1,158 and 1,163 euros, although this is only the floor indicated by Díaz, so it could be higher.
The unions indicated that their demand would be oriented towards around 5%, which would translate into an SMI very close to 1,200 euros per month, a target that Pepe Álvarez’s union had already set for 2024. If this comes to fruition , the government, with Pedro Sánchez at the helm, would accumulate an increase of almost 60% since the first update, approved a few months after the motion of censure that relieved Mariano Rajoy of the post. before the Council of Ministers. The former Ministry of Employment of Fátima Báñez set itself the objective of reach 850 euros per month in 2020but it had already been agreed with the unions and employers’ organizations to increase it to 950 euros gross per month before the start of the pandemic.
Reaction of businessmen
The Ministry of Labor will wait to analyze the work of this group before convening the negotiating table with unions and employers’ organizations, however, the representation of small and medium-sized businesses at this table has already expressed its discomfort with this announcement. “The increase in the minimum wage must meet economic criteria“, as provided for in article 27 of the workers’ statute, without ignoring the productivity of companies, as has been done in recent years”, underline Cepyme sources. “SMEs are plunged into a period of declining productivity due, on the one hand, to the sharp increase in costs that they have recorded in recent years and which prevents them from investing in their businesses, which also affects the evolution of their productivity in the future”, adds the employers’ association led by Gerardo Cuerva.
The employers’ organization underlines that the increase in labor costs recorded since 2019 and which is partly explained by the latest pension reform – of which it only supported the first part – has resulted in a heavier burden for companies less than 250 workers. Cepyme estimates this increase at 19.5% against the 15.8% supported by the large company by comparing data from the second quarter of these two years. During this period, with the government of Pedro Sánchez, the minimum wage increased from the 900 euros approved a few months after the motion of censure to the current 1,134 euros and only one of these increases had the support of this association and CEOE . Workers, unions and businessmen reached agreement on increase the minimum income to 950 euros in 2020shortly before the outbreak of the pandemic.
