From bad to bad. This is how salaries in Alicante evolve in relation to what is happening in all of Spain. And the thing is, in 2019, before the covid crisis broke out, the province was the tenth lowest-paid person, while only four years later it was fifth after a five-place drop. For this reason, At 1,810 euros a month, that puts it just ahead of Zamora, Jaén, Cáceres and Badajoz, the regions where workers earn lower wages.. That’s a long way from the average across the country at €2,105 and the top of the list at €2,559 in Álava. Unions attribute low wages to the heaviness of the hospitality industry and insist that changes in the production model are needed. Employers, on the other hand, stress that the deals bring significant wage increases, although they warn that they cannot jeopardize the viability of companies.
The latest data on average Social Security contribution bases does not paint an alarming picture regarding the remuneration of Alicante workers. And this the province loses place in the rankings until it is fifth from the bottom. The average monthly salary of 1,810 euros is just ahead of Zamora’s 1,804 euros, Jaén’s 1,803 euros, Cáceres’s 1,781 euros and Badajoz of 1,758 euros. In the last four years, it has been surpassed by Huelva, Almeria, Córdoba, Granada, Cuenca and Cádiz, which have so far lagged behind.
The average monthly salary of a Spaniard is currently set at 2,105 euros; At 2,559 euros, those in Álava earn the highest average salaries in the entire country, followed by those from Gipuzkoa at 2,553 euros and Biscay at 2,510 euros. The situation of the Basque provinces. They are followed by Madrid with 2,351 euros and Barcelona with 2,333 euros.
Clearly, in Alicante It is also the province with the lowest salary in the Community of Valencia as a whole.Since Valencia’s average salary is 2,007 euros and Castellón’s is 2,017 euros.
unions
As for the reasons why Alicante’s salary perceptions are at the bottom, unions agree in pointing out the huge weight of the hospitality sector. According to Yolanda Díaz, secretary general of the UGT at l’Alacantí and Les Marines, “this is a pervasive evil we are dragged into in such a region where we are so dependent on a sector of activity where wages are very low and also so far high turnover and significant there has been a transience”.
And in this sense, he also expresses his belief that the lack of waiters condemned by the hospitality industry is not real. “Here -emphasizes- no shortage of workers but better working conditions. If employers want to retain their professionals, they must improve their salaries.
Despite everything, Díaz believes there are elements that will contribute to improving provincial rankings in salary matters, such as the recent deal for the hotel industry, which delivered significant salary increases in four years, as well as labor reform. , which reduces temporality.
From this center, in any case, insists on the need to introduce changes to the production model, basically pointing to the union leader, “the industry offers better quality and also better paid jobs. Just see what’s going on in the province of Castellón, which has much higher salaries thanks to the ceramics industry.
CCOO Central Regions Secretary General Raül Alcocel similarly states that the hotel industry is an extremely irregular and unstable sector and that even if an agreement is reached on salary increases, it is difficult to follow up afterwards. That the agreed conditions are met, because control arrives where it came from. Also, we find that collective bargaining does not reach all sitesdeteriorating, and much, the system of working relations ».
Alcocel acknowledges that the industry provides higher-quality employment, but warns that in the state of Alicante there is “very low productivity and this is clearly reflected in wages”. And at this point, it calls on Administrations to play a more active role. In his words, “Sectors and companies that make efficient investments need to be helped.. Coffee isn’t worth it for everyone.”
businessmen
And what is the employer’s view on this? Valencia Community Business Confederation (CEV) President Salvador Navarro points out that the agreements reached include significant wage increases, and that those currently in the negotiation phase follow the same line. However, these increasesthey cannot compromise the viability of companies. Let’s not forget that a large part of our productive fabric is made up of SMEs and that there is a significant increase in labor costs and they cannot transfer this to their business margins.”
Thus, the employer’s representative argues that it is not intended to stop fair wage increases in any way, but also underlines the following:helps if social contributions or tax pressure are not increasedand better adaptation of education to business reality».
According to a report by the Adecco group, with data taken as a starting point from Eurostat and the Quarterly Labor Cost Survey, the average salary in the Community of Valencia is 637 euros per month less than the European Union (EU) average. in spain. The biggest difference is in Luxembourg, where an employee from that country earns 2,048 euros more per month than a Valencian.
The report highlights that there are 12 countries with higher salaries than the Valencian Community. And he gives as an example the salary difference between the Community and Germany, which in 2022 reached 1,483 euros per month. This difference means, for example, that the average Valencian wage earner must work around 23 months in a year to earn a similar income to that of the average German wage earner.
Despite the above, the Adecco research highlights that the wage level in the Community of Valencia is enviable for the 15 lower-paid EU countries. The extreme case comes from the comparison with Bulgaria, whose monthly difference is less than 1,015 euros per year. This means that the average Valencian earner earns in less than five months, with an average Bulgarian salaryman the whole year. In other words, it would take around 31 months for a Bulgarian worker to earn the same amount of money as an average Valencian salaryman in a year.
Without reaching such a large size, the Community’s wage advantage is large compared to neighboring Portugal. The salary here is 510 euros higher per month than in Portugal, meaning an average Valencian salary earns the same amount as a yearly salary from Portugal in just over eight months.