The Ministry of Labor will convene unions and employers after Three Kings (Monday, January 6) to start negotiating the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) that was pending last year. The department headed by Yolanda Díaz is still waiting to receive the report of the expert committee that he designated in which a range of possible increases will be proposed. The ‘wise men’ appointed by Labor met again this Friday to finalize their report, which is not yet ready.
“The report will be completed in the coming days and we will convene the social dialogue immediately after Reyes,” Díaz’s ‘number two’ in the ministry, Joaquín Pérez Rey, said in statements to the media. The Secretary of State for Labor did not want to get involved with any specific increase figure. “Once these processes are completed, we will be in a position to raise the SMI,” he simply commented.
What Labor has made clear on previous occasions is that In no case will the SMI lose purchasing power. For this to be the case, the increase should have a floor of 3%, given that consumer prices closed 2024 with an increase of 2.8%. In any case, the proposal that Labor presents to the social agents once it has the report of the committee of experts will foreseeably be higher. It is worth remembering that the Government has set the objective that the minimum wage be equivalent to 60% of the average salary in the country. An equivalence that Díaz already considers fulfilled, although the unions do not believe so.
Following that logic, so as not to break with the 60% The SMI would have to rise at the same rate as the rest of the salaries. And although the data are still approximate, statistics such as salary costs or average contribution bases suggest that the average salary in Spain increased by around 4% last year. The unions have already announced that they seek an increase of at least 5% in the lowest remuneration allowed by law.
The other missing piece in the minimum wage puzzle is the Ministry of Economy, which is present in the committee of experts through Víctor Ausín, general director of Economic Policy. Minister Carlos Corpo pointed out on Wednesday that there is still room to continue raising the minimum wage and “strive to converge to 60% of the average wage,” but he has not commented on a specific figure.
Harsh attacks on the Economy
Discrepancies between Labor and the Economy have been common during the last two legislatures, but they have been accentuated in recent weeks regarding the negotiation to reduce working hours. This same Friday, Yolanda Díaz charged harshly against Carlos Body. “It is almost a bad person to tell working people in our country today that you refuse to reduce your working day by half an hour a day.“, commented the vice president in an interview on Radio Nacional, a channel in which Carlos Cuerpo participated just two days ago.
“The working day is going to be reduced and the socialist part of the Government is going to boast as it did after the minimum wage.”or, just as happened with the labor reform, with the ERTE and with the riders,” added the head of Labor. The two ministries are at odds because the Economy has requested more flexibility and more care in the design of this measure, which has not yet been implemented. has even reached the Council of Ministers.
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