The new year is starting and the majority of employers repeat the call they make to their managers every year, instructing their employees to implement this or that salary increase in the first payroll of January. The vast majority of workers will receive a salary increase in 2024. 3% and 4%However, lower-level employees will be closer to the upper level, and managers and middle managers will be closer to the lower level.
This is the projection drawn by the consulting firm’s salary outlook report ceinsaThe report was prepared based on the salaries of nearly 500 companies, the results of which were reported by El Periódico de Cataluña of the Prensa Ibérica group. Their calculations predict that wages will rise above the price level, breaking the inertia of income loss. purchasing power What has happened since the beginning of the inflation crisis. If 2023 was a transition year in this sense, in which some of the salaries rose above the CPI, Ceinsa’s predictions reveal that the majority of payrolls would exceed prices in 2024.
According to the predictions of Funcas, which predicts the average inflation of 2024 in its last panel 3.2%, all professional categories will see their purchasing power maintained on average. Although ordinary employees have more room for improvement than managers.
Eight out of 10 companies have either decided or outlined what wage increases they will give to their employees in 2024. Therefore, Ceinsa expects there to be little difference between its forecasts and year-end data. The forecast for essential workers is that payrolls will increase by February: 3.9%then one 3.5% middle management and 3.25% managers. In other words, unlike what happened in previous economic cycles, in this period when wages accelerate from above rather than from below, ‘ordinary workers’ benefit the most.
Ceinsa data also points in the same direction as other indicators and supports the thesis that wage inequality is already declining. observatory CaixaBank Research The banking institution recently updated its own figures, compiled from hundreds of thousands of payrolls on which it is based, to 2023. wage range It is between those that increase the most and those that decrease the least. Although the gap between both groups remains significant, it is now at historical lows; Workers with less purchasing power benefit, among others, from the government’s policy of massive increases in the minimum wage over the past five years.
On average, Ceinsa predicts that salaries will increase by 3.5% in 2024. This rate is slightly below the 2023 forecast of 3.7% and is in line with the forecasts of other labor organizations. Going back to CaixaBank Research, for example, the last recorded data for 2023 also shows a 3.5% annual increase in payrolls.
More salary increases in the private sector than in the public sector
According to official statistics compiled by the Ministry of Labor on the subject collective agreementsThe agreed wage increase closed 2023 at 3.5%. Although new contracts are signed at higher increases of 4.1% than the ranges agreed upon in collective bargaining agreements between management and union leaders. The base increase agreed upon bilaterally between social actors for 2024 is 3%.
Going back to Ceinsa data, those who will benefit most from remuneration according to company size will be large companies and medium-sized companies. The estimated salaries of employees of companies with fewer than 100 employees this year will increase by 3.4%; 100 to 500 employees, 4.1%; 500 to 1,000 employees, 2.8%; and 3.7% per 1,000 employees.
Planned increases private sector will be higher than expected. sector people. The administration’s commitment to unions is to increase public payrolls by 2%. If the CPI between 2022 and 2024 is higher than the increases accumulated in that period, another 0.5 percent may be added to this percentage. Although civil servant salaries started 2024 frozen, the Government did not include a revaluation of the salaries of public employees in the omnibus decision of the last Council of Ministers of 2023. The Executive’s public commitment is to apply that increase retroactively to 1 January and is working to have it included in the State’s new general budgets; is still subject to negotiation and processing.