The wages agreed in last November’s agreement increased by 3.49% compared to last year, according to statistics released this month by the Ministry of Labor. This is a significant advance, which exceeds the average inflation for the eleventh month by eight tenths (2.7%). The gain in purchasing power is even greater if the data is encapsulated in agreements signed during the year, with an increase of 4.15%. This increase strongly exceeds what the unions and employers had agreed this year, in the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) signed in 2023, by 3%. All these figures arrive at the height of the wage negotiations, before which the Ministry of Labor calls on the unions and employers to increase the inter-professional minimum wage (SMI).
Collective agreement statistics are an administrative file which does not measure salaries, but rather the evolution of the scales agreed in these collective agreements. According to data released this quarter, the 3,130 agreements analyzed with economic effects in 2025 increased by 3.49%. This does not represent the average salary advancement, because this statistic otherwise diagnoses the situation of the people protected by these agreements. Currently, there are 9.65 million employees, while the second Labor force survey There are around 19 million employees per year in Spain.
Of these 9.65 million workers, 3.97 million benefit from increases above 3% and another 3.69 million are close to it, with increases between 2.5% and 3%. There are another million and on average with an increase of between 1.5% and 2.5%, which leaves them on the threshold of losing purchasing power. Another 400,000 employees are in a worse situation, with their tables frozen, even if these are increases less than this 1.5%.
By sector, the most significant increase in 2025 is recorded in scientific and technical activities (4.87%) and in health and social services (4.8%). Conversely, the energy supply (1.56%) and the area (2.04%), lower than the price evolution. By communities, the highest point is the increase in the Balearic Islands (6.04%) and the decrease in the Murcia region (2.73%).
If the analysis is limited to the 683 agreements signed in 2025, which cover the conditions of 2.28 million employees, the average salary variation is 4.15%. This percentage far exceeds the increase agreed by employers and unions in the AENC of 2023, intended to compensate for the loss of purchasing power triggered by the inflationary crisis. The objective was 4% in 2023, 3% in 2024 and another 3% in 2025. It is not obligatory for companies to apply these increases nor for committees to limit themselves to asking for these percentages, but it is an action guide for negotiators agreement by agreement.
A little more than three weeks after the end of the entry into force of the AENC, the other major salary debate is that of the minimum wage. The Ministry of Labor will soon publish the report entrusted to union, academic and government experts, to those who asked to propose the amount to increase the SMI so that it represents 60% of the average salary, the quota to which the PSOE and Sumar committed in their government agreement.
Negotiation on the SMI
CEOE and Cepyme calculate that the minimum wage represents this figure, based on data recently published by the EPA, and therefore propose a moderate increase. The employer’s executive committee decided this month to implement an allowance of 1.5%, online, among civil servants, an offer conditional on the Ministry of Labor not modifying the regulations on the absorption of pluses. Yolanda Díaz’s department promised the unions that it would eliminate by decree the possibility of SMI increases being compensated by companies by eliminating salary supplements.
The unions also addressed this issue in their proposal to increase the SMI, published a few weeks ago. They said they wouldn’t wake up to a hike that didn’t deliver on the Labor promise. In addition, he proposes a reduction of 7.5% so that this level of remuneration is contributed to the IRPF, so that the grandson who becomes a worker grows up to compensate for the increase in prices.
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