More than 7 million employees receive the SMI or less, most because they work fewer hours than the law allows
In Spain there are more than seven million employees who declare income equal to or less than the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) full time. A figure that is equivalent to approximately a third of the employees in the entire country and that hides a reality that is especially everyday among women and young people. This is reflected in a study recently published by the UGT union that has been prepared based on salary statistics published by the Tax Agency (AEAT).
The data goes back to 2022 (latest tax statistics available), a year in which the SMI stood at 14,000 gross euros per year in 14 payments. In that exercise, 3.8 workers were counted with declared income of 7,000 euros or less and another 3.5 million who won between 7,000 and 14,000 euros.
In this section, the gender and age differences are very significant. Thus, while 31% of men equaled or remained below the SMI in 2022, In the case of women this figure rose to 42.5%. Even more striking are the differences by age. In the case of young people, 80% of those under 26 years of age received the SMI or less two years ago.
These figures tell us that There is a significant part of the population that works fewer hours than they could theoretically. Not in vain, the only way you can earn less than the annual SMI full-time is to work part-time or not work at all for the entire year. This is, precisely, one of the two faces of job insecurity in Spain: that of people who would like to work more hours to earn more money but cannot. The other, perhaps better known, is that of workers who want to reduce their marathon days.
“Despite the fact that the SMI has increased by 73.1% in the last 8 years, many people still do not reach its equivalent amount on an annual and full-time level,” the union reflects. Something that “It is not explained by non-compliance or fraud on the part of the companies”, they point out in UGT. Rather, it is “a direct consequence of suffering from low work intensity, which ends up reducing the effectiveness of the SMI as an instrument to improve the well-being of the most precarious people.”
No matter how much the SMI is raised, if a third of Spanish workers do not work full time (some of them by their own will, it must be said) inequality will still be there. Hence, UGT considers that increasing the working hours of those who suffer from underemployment or combating temporary employment “are also two basic pillars of salary policy in our country.” “As important if possible as raising the SMI itself,” they add.
The cause: underemployment
The latest Active Population Survey (EPA) reflects that there are five million workers in Spain who could work more hours than they have contracted. Either because they are unemployed, discouraged or because they have a job but with part-time work. Of them, 1.6 million people are people with an occupation, but in which they work fewer hours than they would like. This is what is known as underemployed, because they are people who do not have the opportunity to take advantage of their full potential.
In this case, underemployment is eminently female: 72.6% are women given that three out of every four part-time jobs carried out in Spain are women. The robotic portrait of an underemployed person is that of a Spanish woman (although the incidence among foreigners is higher) who works in the service sector in tasks such as commerce, hospitality or domestic work; with low training, often young and in elementary occupations.
“The enormous productive potential of thousands of people is being wasted, while they are denied the possibility of developing decent lives,” they maintain from UGT. “Increasing the working hours of underemployed people must be as high a priority as ending strenuous work hours,” they add.
