Who is affected by the increase in the minimum wage?

Despite discrepancies about its amount, the decision to increase the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) in 2021 has been taken. That the second and last meeting held this Monday by the Government and social agents has ended without an agreement does not endanger the consolidation of a rebound that the workers’ representatives celebrate, even if it is not carried out in the terms that they would like.

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Not surprisingly, according to their estimates, this improvement will affect about a million and a half people who currently charge 950 euros in 14 payments of which the SMI is made up. In this way, they understand, the coverage of all those employees who operate outside of any regulatory agreement is improved once again, and who, therefore, are more exposed to receiving lower salaries.

But is there a more specific profile about this type of worker? There is, at least taking into account the studies that have been carried out over the last few uploads from organizations such as Workers’ Commissions. In its latest report, the union established a very specific X-ray of the profile of the worker who received the base salary in 2019, then 900 euros: it was a woman, Andalusian and who worked in the service sector.

This conclusion was the result of the evaluation of the data published in the Labor Force Survey (EPA) on wages in its 2018 annual subsample, which includes all wage earners, including those in the agricultural sector, domestic service and civil servants. in passive classes. Despite the fact that in this study the volume of workers paid by the SMI showed a result close to two million people, the most recent revisions have lowered this figure to close to one and a half million. However, the rest of the conclusions have remained fixed.

Among them, more than half of the recipients of the basic salary are women (57.6%); that close to half (48.8%) are people between 35 and 54 years old; and that three out of four (75.8%) work in the service sector. Disaggregating the results by territories, Andalusia presents the highest numbers (23.6%), ahead of Extremadura (20.5%) and the Canary Islands (15.8%).

According to the latest data on the distribution of workers according to their earnings with respect to the minimum interprofessional salary that the National Institute of Statistics (INE) throws for the year 2019 ―the last computed―, 18.18% of wage earners received an amount less than or equal to that of the SMI, while of the total number of employees who received it, 25.72% were women and 11.12% were men.

Defend the weakest

“I want to be clear with those who today say that it is not necessary to raise the SMI. They must explain why they are doing it if they are negotiating agreements with higher increases, of 1.5% and 1.8% ”, declared this Monday the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz. “That does not touch is affecting the most vulnerable people in this country, exactly a million and a half workers outside the agreement. That is why I make an appeal to defend the weakest ”, he completed.

Among the groups that the Ministry of Labor has located as more vulnerable, and therefore more likely to opt for lower-paid jobs are young people with little training ―who do not have completed Primary Education and have less than a year of seniority in the company, as well as that of the foreign community.

As for the sectors in which these downward contracts are processed, it is in the services sector where a greater amount accumulates; and particularly within the hotel industry and commerce.