Agreement wages rise 2.6% until August, almost eight points below the IPC

Three out of four workers with an agreement do not have salary review clauses

MADRID, 9 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The wages agreed in the agreement rose by an average of 2.6% until August, a figure slightly higher than the figure for July (2.56%), but almost eight points lower than the last advanced CPI, which stood at 10.4%, according to data extracted from the collective bargaining statistics of the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy.

This salary increase is below the 3.6% increase agreed between the Government and the unions for the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI) and is somewhat more in line with the guidelines set out in the Interconfederal Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining ( AENC) 2018-2020, which proposed wage increases of around 2% plus one percentage point linked to concepts such as productivity, business results and absenteeism.

This AENC has not been able to be renewed for 2022 due to the existing differences regarding the salary review clause, inalienable for unions and unacceptable for employers due to high levels of inflation.

The Government has again insisted that the social agents sit down to negotiate a salary agreement. The unions, which have started a campaign of mobilizations in defense of the improvement of wages, demanded from employers a rise of 3.5% for this year, with revision clauses so that workers do not lose purchasing power due to high levels of inflation. For its part, the proposal that the CEOE put on the table included a salary increase of 3.5% for 2022, but without a review clause.

At the moment, with the data up to August, the salary increase agreed in the agreement is almost one point below the one proposed in this negotiation by both the CCOO and UGT (3.5%) and the CEOE, but in the latter case excluding the clause warranty.

Most of the agreements registered until August in the Labor statistics were signed in previous years, although they take effect in 2022.

Specifically, until August a total of 2,540 collective agreements with economic effects had been registered for that period, of which only 462 have been signed this year, with an average wage increase of 2.90%. The rest, 2,078, were signed in previous years and include a slightly lower average salary increase of 2.55%.

The 2,314 agreements registered until August gave protection to just over 7.11 million workers.

According to Labor statistics, most of the agreements registered until August do not have a salary review clause to avoid losses in purchasing power. Specifically, of the 2,540 agreements recorded, only 14.4% (366) had a salary guarantee clause and of these, 276 contemplate that it be applied retroactively.

The agreements that include a review clause affect just over 1.7 million workers of the 7.1 million covered by the agreements registered until August, the equivalent of 24.4% of the total. Thus, the bulk of workers (three out of four) lack safeguard clauses in their collective agreements. The number of workers protected with this instrument has been reduced compared to previous months, since in March it exceeded 29%; in May it stood at 25.7% and in June at 24.7%.

The Bank of Spain has warned of the risk of introducing salary revision clauses in the agreements at this time in order to experience second-round effects on inflation. In recent years, the percentage of workers protected by this clause was less than 20%. Now it is at 24.4%, but it has come close to 30%.

Of the total agreements registered in the first eight months of the year, 1,929 were company agreements, with effects on 454,700 workers and an average wage increase of 2.85%, while 611 were sectoral agreements and covered 6.6 million workers , with an average wage increase of 2.59%.

Until August, the average working day agreed upon in an agreement stood at 1,730.4 hours per year per worker (1,708.9 hours in company agreements and 1,731.9 in higher level agreements).

Of the 2,540 agreements registered until August, a total of 121, the equivalent of 4.7%, contemplated a salary freeze, while 31.2% of the agreements included a salary increase of more than 3%, with the average being 5 .09%.

56.4% of the agreements move in average wage increases ranging from 0.5% to 2.5%. The agreements registered until August with wage increases of more than 2% reach 45% of the total. The statistics do not include any agreement with a salary cut, unlike 2021, when two agreements of this nature were contemplated.

The Labor statistics also reveal that in the first eight months of the year, 382 non-applications of agreements were registered, below the 400 in the same period of 2021.

These 'pick-ups' affected a total of 14,708 workers, compared to the 15,703 affected until August of the previous year, which represents a decrease of 6.3%. The 'pick up' of the agreements supposes the revision of the labor conditions in the companies.