The government plans to finalize this week the increase in the minimum wage for 2025, with no signs of reaching an agreement on a figure with employers in the last meeting, having rejected the business offer to raise it by 3% as they deemed it “insufficient.” All indications suggest that the Ministry of Labor, led by Yolanda Díaz, will implement a 4.4% increase according to the highest recommendation from experts and below the 5% or 6% demanded by unions. This will translate into a new burden for companies, which have seen a 62% increase in the minimum cost of hiring an employee since 2018 (including contributions), as explained by the El Economista newspaper.
During this period, the minimum income has grown substantially. This threshold was set at €735.9 per month when Pedro Sánchez took office, and all signs point to it climbing to €1,184 gross per month in the coming weeks, a 60% increase over seven years that has been accompanied by an advance in social contributions through the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI) introduced in the latest pension reform. This means that the minimum cost of hiring a worker will rise to €22,318 after the new increase, according to the calculations made by the Organisation of Small and Medium-size Businesses (Cepyme), compared to the €13,802 that a company had to allocate at a minimum to pay an employee’s salary. In other words, the difference will now be 61.7%.
