The salaries agreed in the collective agreement rise by 3.49% until November, which does not allow them to maintain purchasing power in these first eleven months of the year, because the average of internal annual inflation in this period increases to 3.59%.
The truth is that the agreements signed this year more than comply with the recommendation of the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), which sets an increase of 4% for 2023. Specifically, these agreements experience an increase of 4.14%, but they represent a minority in relation to those signed previously and that are applied this year, and in this case the salary increase remains at 3.49%. There are 3,300 agreements registered before 2023 with application this year, which affect seven million workers and increase salaries by 3.16; while those signed this year are 1,000 agreements, affecting 3.5 million workers, and an increase of 4.14%.
This increase of 3.49% is one of the largest in the historical series, and shows an upward path since the beginning of the year, with an increase in January of 2.8% that has grown uninterruptedly month by month, until current percentage. It also represents an increase of eight tenths compared to November of last year, when it stood at 2.69%.
In the increase until November of this year, the percentage is higher in sectoral agreements, which affect almost ten million workers, with 3.5%, while company agreements, with a lower impact, only on 600,000 employees, the increase remains at 3.25%.
Despite the 3.49% increase, workers continue to lose purchasing power, although now very moderately. The big blow came last year, with one more loss taking into account that last year, the brutal loss, due to inflation that shot up to 8.4%, which placed it practically five points above salaries.
This evolution of salaries is one of the elements that the Ministry of Labor defends that must be taken into account in the negotiation of the increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) that will have a key moment on Monday, in a meeting of the Government with the agents social. In addition to maintaining the equivalence of the SMI with 60% of the average salary, Labor also highlights the maintenance of purchasing power as one of the parameters to take into account. A puzzle that sees possibilities of fitting together at a time when the positions of unions and employers are not very far apart, with some proposing a 5% increase and the others defending 3%. A margin that makes Labor conceive possibilities that this time, unlike the previous ones, the increase can be agreed upon by consensus between the three parties.
