Sales growth limited to 3.1% in the fourth quarter | Salaries in these companies rose 3.7% in the year as a whole
The energy crisis, with a strong rise in business costs, has affected the activity of large Spanish companies. Especially in the last quarter of 2022, when its sales significantly moderated the growth they had experienced during the first part of the year.
This is reflected in the statistics for the sector published on Wednesday by the Tax Agency, where it can be seen that the total sales of the large groups barely grew by 3.1% in the last quarter of the year. A figure lower than the 5.7% of the third, far from the 8.7% of the second and also below the 6.1% registered between January and March.
The Tax Agency considers “large companies” to be natural or legal persons whose volume of operations has exceeded the figure of 6.01 million euros during the calendar year analysed. In total, they represent slightly less than 1% of VAT filers, but their weight in the total turnover of companies is over 60%.
It is true that in December sales accelerated their growth to 3.2%, from the timid 1.8% in November. But the quarterly rate shows the impact of the price and cost crisis on its activity. The slowdown was noted in what companies sell within Spain. But also in what they export. Specifically, domestic sales barely grew by 2.3%, the weakest quarter of the entire year, while abroad they increased by 5.8%, a figure well below the double digit that the reference had been marking in the quarterly rate.
Export push
With a weaker than expected final stretch of the year, sales for all of 2022 increased by only 5.9%. It must be taken into account that these data are deflated and correct for seasonal and calendar variations. Without this effect, they would have grown 14.4% in the last quarter and almost 21% in the year as a whole, above what was achieved in 2021. Starting from the first reference (the deflated data), the main impulse in the Data for all of 2022 came, once again, from the side of exports, which grew at a much stronger rate than domestic sales, on which the burden of the construction component weighed heavily, which sank by 8.5%.
In this context, the statistics also reveal that the number of employees in large companies grew by 5.2% year-on-year. The salary of these workers (measured as average gross income) increased by 3.7% in 2022. Although the figure is lower than the average inflation of 8.4% in 2022, it is the biggest increase since 2008. And it also exceeds the average of 2.78% increase experienced by agreement wages.
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