The Annual Survey on Salary Structure published this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) indicates that the average salary per worker amounted to 26,948.87 euros in 2022 after increasing by 4.1% compared to the previous year, but the most frequent salary (modal salary) was 14,586.44, 12,362.43 euros below the average.
The downward gap in the modal wage compared to other years (for example, in 2021 the most common wage was 18,502 euros) is explained by the increase in the Minimum Professional Wage (SMI), which in 2022 reached 1,000 euros in 14 payments, which moved many low-wage workers to between 14,000 and 15,000 euros.
The modal wage concentrated 4.2% of employees, although the survey reveals that there were wages with a similar frequency in the ranges of 16,495.8 euros (4.2% of the total number of employed workers) and 18,494.3 euros (4.1%). In total, one in five employees (20.5%) earned between 14,000 and 19,000 euros annually in 2022.
With the SMI reference, 17.53% of employees had a salary at most equal to the SMI.
Regarding the median salary (which results from dividing the number of workers into two equal parts, those with a higher salary and those with a lower salary), it amounts to 22,383.11 euros in 2022 compared to 21,638.69 the previous year.
The analysis of the distribution of salaries in Spain always reveals a greater number of workers in the low values than in the highest salaries – as shown in the graph -, so the average salary is higher than both the median salary and the highest salary. frequent.
Nearly 25% of women earn as much or less than the minimum wage
Another recurring reading of the distribution of salaries is the difference according to gender. The survey indicates that the average annual gross salary of men amounted to 29,381.8 euros in 2022, 3.5% more than in 2021, while that of women, although having progressed more (5.1%), has fallen but remains lower, at 24,359.8 euros. Despite faster growth, the average annual salary of women represents 82.9% of the male population (81.6% in 2021).
In more detail, one in four women (24.3%) received an annual salary less than or equal to the minimum wage in 2022, a much lower proportion among men, i.e. one in ten (10.3%).
The data confirm that 25% of female workers obtained an annual salary lower than or equal to the minimum wage, while 10.7% of men were in this situation. This difference in remuneration between men and women is fundamentally explained by the part-time jobs that women have historically held, which is why the INE highlights that the wage gap, which in 2022 was reduced to 8.96% (compared to 11.28% in 2018), is reduced if similar jobs are considered.
He type of day This is the variable that most influences remuneration. This brings the average annual salary of full-time workers to 30,998.3 euros, while that of part-time workers was 12,986 euros, in both cases higher than in 2021.
Part-time workers’ hourly wages were almost 20% lower than the average hourly wage for men and more than 28% lower than those for women. However, for full-time workers, men’s hourly earnings were 6.1% higher than the average, while women’s were 2.3% higher.
Temporary workers were paid 7% below the average wage
Contracts also make a difference. Workers with permanent contracts, for their part, had an average salary of 27,193.32 euros per year in 2022, slightly lower than in 2021, while workers with temporary contracts earned an average of 25,096.82 euros per year in 2022, 26.5% more in relative values. compared to 19,842.69 of the previous year.
According to statistics, this rebound should be attributed to the “significant” conversion caused by the 2021 labor reform from temporary contracts to permanent contracts thanks to the figure of the discontinuous fixed-term contract.
Overall, the average annual wage of temporary contract workers was 7.7% lower than that of permanent contract workers and about 6.9% lower than the overall average wage.
Precisely because of the transformation of temporary contracts into permanent contracts following the labor reform, The average salary for temporary contracts was higher than that for permanent contracts for women (25,458.9 euros per year compared to 24,187.41 euros).
Hospitality salaries, those which increase the most (but remain the last)
The gaps are transferred to sectors and activities. Thus, the survey reveals that the best-paid economic activity in 2022 was the supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning, with 55,470 euros, a figure that doubles the national average. The contrast is signed hotel employees (16,274.7 euros per year) and other services (18,269.9 euros), which received the lowest remuneration, respectively 39.6% and 32.2% below the average.
As in the case of the comparison of salaries between men and women, the hotel sector comes at the bottom of the table despite signing the most pronounced salary increases (+11.2%).
