Family trade accentuates its decline: 82,000 freelancers fall

The stores of all life, those of proximity, languish devoured by costs, such as the minimum wage, new consumption models and large brands, to which the greatest taxes and a spiral of upload of contributions are joined in recent years in recent years that have given the tip to a situation that began in the 90swhen the balance of trade in Spain was unbalanced after the proliferation of large surfaces, which gained market share at the same rate in which the self -employed lost it without anyone putting a remedy.

“Commerce, agriculture, industry, especially self -employed Lorenzo Amor, president of ATE. He explains that a gap is opening between the urban and rural nucleus with the rise of the SMI by 60%, with the increase in contributions or with excess demands and regulation.

The Vice President of CEOE also claims the administration’s shock measures. Ensures that it is necessary that in the most unpopulated areas a plan of generational relaysince closures are taking place because many businesses are not guaranteed family continuity. But, above all, he explains that all businesses cannot be required, taking into account that consumption opportunities are not equal in some places. It also claims a “true modernization plan” of traditional trade, in which you bet on digitalization and innovation.

At the moment 2025 has arrived loaded with more costs and unprecedented social security charges. To increase the contribution bases and Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI) at 0.8% The beginning is added in the application of the additional solidarity quota to cover pensions. And to all these charges a new increase in the minimum wage of 4.4%, which leaves the indicator at 1,184 euros per month, which implies an accumulated rise of 60% since Pedro Sánchez governs. All this plus the current expenses that any business has to face and the threat of the reduction of the day until 37.5 hours, which would involve in practice an increase in costs for companies, taking into account that the working week would be reduced But not the worker’s salary.

2025 can give the tip to a limit situation for trade, which already has the impact of pandemic and inflation crisis of 2023, which punished the smallest companies. The low digitalization, the lack of generational relief and the ‘fever’ of permanent discounts remain, more Alcista Rentals. The cancellation of the advantageous contracts for the lease of premises in the central areas of the cities in recent years is guilty of the lock of thousands of stores throughout Spain, as has happened in many of the emblematic neighborhoods of Madrid.

Bad news cocktail

This cocktail of bad news has been carried ahead in the last year those 8,000 freelancersa collective employment generator and very sensitive to the fluctuations of the economy that, in many cases, is not seeing another exit to lower the blind. As a departure, many employers have not seen another option to do without their workers and take care of their business.

The uncertainty about the future was reflected in the last ATA barometer with data from 2024 and perspectives for 2025 presented in January, in which one in four autonomous claimed that he had just closed A bad year And, although they saw some light this 2025, still one in three was not optimistic. Almost half of self -employed workers had a negative perception of the economy, and even almost one in three considered that the situation is very negative.

But the story does not end here. The case of trade is not isolated in a general context of Employment growth in Spain and also of self -employed workers (+42,396). The self -employed of the industry and those of the field are going through their own via Crucis. In the first case the decrease was 2,370 affiliates and in the second of 3,691.