Spaniards’ purchasing power falls to levels of almost 30 years ago
The real purchasing power of Spaniards in 2022 was similar to that of 1996, i.e. almost 30 years ago, due to the high inflation of recent months and that the average salary in Spain increased by 4.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022 in year-on-year rate and reached a “new record high”, up to 1,823 euros per month, although
According to the “Adecco Monitor of job opportunities and satisfaction”, Madrid remains the autonomous community with the highest average salary, 2,135 euros per month, followed by the Basque Country (2,103 euros), Navarre (1,969 euros) and Catalonia (1,958 euros).
These are the only four regions with an average wage that exceeds the national average, while at the other extreme are Extremadura, with an average wage of 1,486 euros per month, the Canary Islands (1,573 euros) and Murcia (1,585 euros).
PURCHASING POWER FALLS AND IS BELOW THE 2020 LEVEL
In terms of real purchasing power, the average wage has fallen by 0.7% compared to a year earlier and has now fallen for five consecutive quarters, which means that it is already below the 2020 level. These data highlight the economic policy of the PSOE-Unidas Podemos government, which is incapable of fighting inflation.
In this sense, the report details that “inflation has a greater negative impact on purchasing power than the fact that more than 3 million wage earners received 30% less of their salary because they were on ERTE”.
Thus, the purchasing power of the average wage is now slightly lower than in 1996 and is 10.1% lower than the highest purchasing power in the historical series, which continues to be that of 2009.
By region, nine of them showed a gain in purchasing power a year ago, but now show a reduction, especially Castilla-La Mancha, where it fell by 4.3%, Asturias, by 4%, and Castilla y León, with a reduction of 3.6%.
Only four regions saw their purchasing power increase: Catalonia (2.2 %) and Valencia (0.2 %), as well as the Balearic Islands (8.3 %) and the Canary Islands (11.3 %), although in the latter two cases this was due to the “ERTE effect”, i.e. “they were the regions where the normalisation of employment took the longest and the ERTEs lasted the longest, which kept wages depressed for longer”.
If the variation in purchasing power is expressed in euros, rather than as a percentage, it can be seen that during the last eight quarters an average wage-earner has 157 euros less in his pocket than he had two years ago, the document adds.
By region, it should be noted that there are seven where the cut in purchasing power of the average wage is more than 600 euros per year: Navarre (1,132 euros less), Asturias (902 euros less), Castilla-La Mancha (871 euros loss), Basque Country (853), Castilla y León (725 euros) and Galicia (637 euros less).
Meanwhile, the purchasing power of the average salary increases in the Canary Islands (1,919 euros per year) and the Balearic Islands (1,594 euros), in both cases due to the heavy losses suffered during the ERTEs, followed by Catalonia (497 euros more) and the Valencian Community (34 euros per year).
With regard to the overall score of the Adecco Monitor, it has accumulated seven consecutive quarters with year-on-year falls, something that has not occurred since 2010, and in the fourth quarter of 2022 it reached 5.8 points, which represents a year-on-year decline of 2.2%.
