SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE / MADRID, Nov 30 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The average monthly salary in the Canary Islands, in gross terms, rose by 1.4% in 2020, to 1,775.71, its highest figure since the 2006 series began, although the second lowest in the country, according to the salary decile prepared by the National Statistics Institute (INE) based on data from the Labor Force Survey (EPA).
At the national level, the average monthly salary increased by 2.8% last year, to 2,038.6 euros. It is the fourth consecutive year in which the average salary has increased after it fell in 2016 for the first time in ten years. The 2020 increase has exceeded that experienced in 2019, when it rose by almost 2%.
The INE specifies that in the estimation of the monthly salary for 2020, income from temporary employment regulation files (ERTE) has been taken into consideration in cases in which employees were in this situation.
According to Statistics data, 40% of wage earners (6.44 million) earned between 1,336.6 and 2,295.2 gross euros per month in 2020, while 30% (4.8 million people) obtained salaries of at least 2,295.2 euros per month and the remaining 30% (another 4.8 million employees) received a salary of less than 1,336.6 euros per month.
Among those 4.8 million employees who received the lowest salaries, more than 3.2 million earned less than 1,134.1 euros gross per month in their main job, while 1.6 million earned less than 820.19 euros .
To compile this statistic, the INE orders all wage earners –16,103,800 people during the past year – according to the amount of the monthly salary received and divides them into 10 equal groups, with 10% of the workers in each group.
As a result, the median salary, which divides all workers into two equal parts, those with a higher salary and those with a lower salary, stood at 1,706.4 euros gross per month in 2020, 1.3% more than in 2019 (22.1 euros more). This median salary is 332 euros lower than the average salary for 2020 (2,038.6 euros).
With the progress registered in 2020, the median salary chains three consecutive years of promotions after having reduced the three previous years. In 2014, the median salary was above 1,600 euros per month, but in 2015 the trend reversed and it was below 1,600 gross euros until 2018, when it began to rebound.
WOMEN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND TEMPORARIES CONCENTRATE THE LOWEST WAGES
Based on the type of working day, 35% of full-time employees earned at least 2,295.2 euros per month in 2020 and 19.9% received less than 1,336.6 euros. In contrast, 87.1% of part-time employees earned less than 1,336.6 euros per month and only 1.7% earned 2,295.2 euros or more.
The average gross salary of full-time workers reached 2,258.3 euros per month in 2020, almost three times more than part-time employees (800.3 euros), although in these differences the gap in hours worked must be taken into account between both groups.
According to INE data, women, young people, people with a lower level of training, workers with less seniority in companies and those hired temporarily have the lowest wages.
In women, almost four out of ten received a salary of less than 1,336.6 euros per month, compared to one in five men. Among young people under 25 years of age, the percentage that earns less than 1,336.6 euros per month reaches 61%, a figure that drops to 24.6% among wage earners who are 55 years of age or older. Altogether, the average gross salary of young people was 1,207.1 euros per month in 2020, almost half that of those over 55 years of age (2,361.2 euros).
The average female salary stood at 1,852 euros per month in 2020, above 1,773.3 euros in 2019, while the average salary for men increased in 2020 to 2,210.3 euros per month. In this way, the average male salary is 19.3% higher than that of women, a difference that has been reduced by three points compared to 2019, when this gap was 22.5%.
One of the reasons that, according to Statistics, explain the salary differences by sex is that women work in a higher proportion than men in part-time jobs, with temporary contracts, and in lower-paid branches of activity.
There is also a salary gap depending on the type of contract. Thus, the average monthly salary of the permanent (2,187.8 euros in 2020) is 40.4% higher than that of the temporary (1,557.8 euros). 43.9% of salaried employees with a temporary contract earned less than 1,336.6 euros in 2020, compared to 25.6% of permanent workers who were in the same situation.
Among the factors that explain this salary inequality between temporary and permanent, the INE mentions the higher educational level of permanent contracts and the greater weight of temporary contracts in branches of activity “with a marked seasonal nature” and lower remuneration.
By level of training, the average salary of wage earners with lower secondary education (1,337.8 euros per month) is considerably lower than that of those with higher education (2,553.2 euros), while, by seniority, those with ten or more years working in a company earn on average 1,100 euros more than those who have been less than a year (2,515.6 euros compared to 1,409.1 euros).
THE FINANCIAL AND ENERGY SECTOR, THE BEST PAYING
The lowest wages were concentrated in 2020 in the hotel industry (68.1% below 1,336.6 euros) and household activities as employers of domestic staff (67.4%). According to the INE, this is due in part to the higher proportion of part-time jobs and temporary employment in these sectors.
On the contrary, the highest salaries were in financial and insurance activities, where 64.8% received salaries above 2,295.2 euros, followed by Education (64.4%) and Public Administration (61 ,4%).
The lowest average wages in 2020 were in household activities as employers of domestic staff (997.3 euros gross per month), in hospitality (1,119.5 euros) and in agriculture (1,373.6 euros), and The highest corresponded to financial and insurance activities (3,152.5 euros gross per month), electricity supply (3,034.1 euros) and information and communications (2,809.5 euros).
EMPLOYEES IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR EARN 58% MORE
The INE indicates that 63.7% of public sector workers had a gross monthly salary of at least 2,295.2 euros in 2020, a percentage that drops to 21.2% in the case of the private sector.
Statistics underlines that this higher concentration of high wages in the public sector is due to the higher percentage of wage earners with higher education, the type of occupation carried out, the lower weight of part-time work and the greater seniority.
Thus, the average gross salary in the public sector reached 2,884.7 euros per month last year, compared to 1,818.6 euros in the private sector. The former has increased by 4.5% compared to 2019, while the average salary in the private sector grew at a much lower rate, 1.2%. In comparison, public employees earn on average 58.6% more than salaried employees in the private sector.
Analyzing the data by region, those with the highest average salaries in 2020 were Madrid (2,350.2 euros), the Basque Country (2,278.8 euros) and Navarra (2,209.2 euros), while Extremadura (1,760.5 euros), the Canary Islands (1,775.7 euros) and Andalusia (1,837.3 euros) registered the lowest.
