The average salary of managers working in the 40 largest Spanish companies is 111 times higher than the average wage bill, according to the report “Wage gaps in large companies” published by Oxfam Intermón.
This analysis analyzes the remuneration levels of 40 large Spanish companies, both the average salaries and the remuneration of members of the company’s management. That is, it takes into account senior executives, members of senior management and members of boards of directors. “From this data we will obtain the salary differences that occur both within companies and in relation to general salary levels in the country,” says Oxfam Intermón.
“In a third of the companies analyzed, the highest salary exceeds the average salary by more than a hundred times” of the companies studied, “and in 40% of companies, men earn 20% more than women for the same work,” specifies Oxfam.
As the report details, this scenario coexists with very low wages and a labor market in which half of employees earn a maximum of one and a half times the minimum wage, or 24,124 euros per year. All this, Oxfam adds, at a time of rising house prices and inflation.
Oxfam Intermón highlights that “the average annual remuneration of the highest paid person during the year 2024 in the 40 companies” analyzed “was 4.37 million euros”. In addition, the “highest remuneration was paid by Iberdrola and reached 14.2 million euros”, without indicating specific people. “Banco Santander paid 13.8 million euros to the highest paid person in 2024” and “Inditex did it with 11.2 million euros.” “At the extreme end were companies that were much more moderate in paying the highest salaries: Aena, with a maximum salary of 212,000 euros; Dia, which paid 272,000 euros to the highest paid person, and Unicaja with 677,000 euros.”
This organization specifies that “in 37.5% of the companies” studied “the highest salary was above 5 million euros and in 7.5% it exceeded 10 million”. “The members of the general management of these companies received on average more than one million euros per year in 32.5% of cases; and 15% of the companies paid the members of their boards of directors more than one million per year.”
Oxfam Intermón therefore concludes that “the average distance between the highest remuneration and the average salary of the companies analyzed is 111 times”.
“This is equivalent to saying that a person in these companies whose salary is in the middle of the salary scale would have to work for more than a century to earn what a top executive earns in a year,” the report adds. “In fact, in one in three companies analyzed in this report, this distance is greater than 100 times. There are companies where this distance is exacerbated, such as Prosegur where the highest remuneration exceeded the average salary by 395 times or Inditex, where this distance is 364 times.”
To rebalance this situation, Oxfam Intermón is calling, on the one hand, for more transparency for companies in the details of their remuneration policies. On the other hand, a maximum gap between the highest salary and the median salary in large companies should be established, from 1 to 20. “The establishment of this ratio must be established gradually, requiring compliance with intermediate milestones until reaching 1:20 as a socially acceptable maximum,” he indicates. “Control mechanisms must be put in place to prevent companies from trying to respect this maximum distance by outsourcing jobs with lower wages. In addition, this requirement should be coordinated with the obligation for companies to pay a living wage to all workers in their value chain,” summarizes this organization.
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