The average salary is 26,949 euros per year, but two thirds of workers earn 1,600 or less per month
The average gross annual salary in Spain amounted to 26,949 euros per year in 2022. A figure 4.1% higher than that recorded the previous year and which represents the largest increase in the average remuneration in the country at least since 2009. This is clear from the Salary Structure Survey published by the Institute National Statistics Office (INE) this Thursday.
The INE data draws on the information on social contributions collected by Social Security and includes a series of variables such as sector of activity, sex, level of occupation or geographical location. This makes this statistics is rich in information and one of the most exhaustive that is disseminated on salaries, but its Achilles heel is the periodicity: it is published two years after the reference exercise.
Although the improvement in the average salary in 2022 is the highest since the INE released this statistic, it occurred in a year in which consumer prices grew by 8.4%. That is The average salary suffered a sharp loss of purchasing power in a context of inflation unprecedented in almost 40 years.
Although the average gives us an approximate image of what it is like to be an employee in Spain, it masks what the daily reality is for the majority of the country’s employees. The INE data reflects that although the average salary is close to 27,000 euros gross, the reality is that two out of every three employees in the country earn less than 28,000 euros.
For an employee who pays taxes in the Community of Madrid, we would be talking about a remuneration of around 22,050 euros per year in net terms, that is, once Social Security contributions and personal income tax withholdings have been deducted. This translates into 1,575 net euros per month in 14 payments or 1,837 if the distribution is in 12 monthly payments.
On the other hand, workers who enjoy high salaries in Spain are a minority. Only 15% of employees earned 42,000 gross euros or more (three times the 2022 minimum wage). In this case, we would be talking about about 31,243 clean euros per year (2,230 per month in 14 payments) for a worker with the characteristics mentioned above.
Hospitality, the lowest paid profession
At the gender level, The average salary for men was 29,382 euros gross, after recording an increase of 3.5%. In the case of the womenthe percentage increase was greater (5.1%), but the average remuneration is considerably lower: It barely reaches 24,360 euros. The causes of the gap are fundamentally due to the fact that women tend to work much more part-time, in many cases undesiredly.
If we analyze which jobs are better and worse paid, we see how the electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector has the highest remuneration of the entire spectrum, with fees of 55,471 gross euros per year. More than double the national average. Instead, The lowest paid activity in Spain continues to be the hospitality industry, where only 16,275 euros are earned per year.
Regarding the position they hold in the company, the best paid workers are directors and managers, with an average remuneration of 59,479 euros per year. The other side of the spectrum is embodied by unskilled workers in the service sector, who barely earned 14,665 euros, little more than the minimum wage in 2022.
The INE data also prove that The level of education is a decisive marker of salary. Thus, employees with university studies would receive a gross salary of 44,672 euros per year, compared to the average 17,333 euros earned by people without primary education.
Basque Country and Madrid exceed 30,000 euros
The salary map of Spain is still divided into two halves: the north, where the average salary of the autonomous communities exceeds or is close to the national average, and a southern half where the lowest salaries are found. The communities where the most money is earned are the Basque Country (32,314 gross euros per year) and Madrid (€31,221)the only two territories that exceed the threshold of 30,000 euros per year.
After them two other northern communities appear, such as Navarra (€29,190) and Catalonia (€28,775)with average salaries higher than the national average. Balearics closes the list of communities with a salary higher than the country’s average, with a remuneration that stands at 27,146 euros Gross annual. The case of the Balearic Islands is especially striking because the largest increase in the average salary in the entire country is recorded: 12.5% compared to 2021.
Already below the national average they appear Asturias (€26,746), Aragon (€26,013), Cantabria (€25,291), The Rioja (€24,903), Valencian Community (€24,510), Castile and León (€24,187) and Galicia (€24,170). The retributive caboose is occupied by the southern communities. In Andalusiathe average salary amounts to €24,042, in Murcia stands at €23,852, in Castilla la Mancha reaches €23,752 and in Canary Islands 23,097 is charged. The community with the highest salary in the country is Extremadura, with an average salary of €21,923.
