Woman, Andalusian, under 24 years old and who works in the field. She is the robot portrait of the beneficiary of the 5% increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) applied since last January 1. The estimate made public today by the Ministry of Labor estimates that 2.4 million workers have managed to increase their salaries to 1,134 euros per month in 14 payments thanks to this latest increase in the SMI.
In the distribution by autonomous communities, Andalusia is by far the one that has benefited the most, a total of 510,000, followed at a distance by Madrid (387,000), Valencia (306,000) and Catalonia (300,000). These four autonomies group around half of the beneficiaries.
If the impact on the total number of beneficiaries is examined, this increase in the SMI benefits 14.4% at the Spanish level. Focusing on communities, the percentage of employees who receive the SMI is especially high in Extremadura (21.7%), the Canary Islands (21.5%) and Murcia (20.1%).
The robotic portrait of the SMI beneficiary appears when verifying that two out of every three beneficiaries are women, that one out of every three are under 24 years of age, that Andalusia is the community with the most recipients of the minimum wage and finally, that agriculture is the sector productive with more beneficiaries.
To be precise, 36.1% of agricultural workers will benefit from this increase in the SMI, while in services the percentage drops to 15.9%, and is even further away in industry (6.4%) and Construction (4.6%).
This increase in the SMI was agreed between the Government and the unions, but without the consensus of the employers' association, which distanced itself from the pact, after a clash of criticism between Labor and the CEOE regarding their respective willingness to reach an agreement. With this increase, the Government considers that it is meeting its established objective of the SMI reaching 60% of the average salary, and that it will be a line that will continue to be maintained during the legislature. The CEOE, for its part, was willing to accept an increase, but as long as it was accompanied by a review of the current regulations, to allow contracts with the public administration to be indexed, which the Treasury refused. This impossibility of transferring the added costs due to the increase in the SMI to the final prices especially affects companies where the weight of salaries in the total costs is very high, and that work with the administration. It is an old demand, which the unions also support, but which the Treasury has always refused to accept.
