SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE / MADRID, Dec. 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The labor cost per worker and month in the Canary Islands shot up 9.8% in the third quarter of the year to reach 2,140.87 euros, at a rate of 17.86 euros per effective hour, which is the second highest increase in the country behind the Balearic Islands, although the community is still ranked as the second with the lowest labor cost, only ahead of Extremadura (2,098.95), the National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported this Friday.
In addition, the wage cost increased by 12.9% compared to the same quarter of the previous year to add 1,576.24 euros, to 13.15 euros per effective hour.
Likewise, in the Canary Islands 34 agreed hours were stopped working and a total of 3,358 vacancies were registered, 2.8% of the country.
In Spain as a whole, the average labor cost per worker and month (which includes salaries and social contributions) rose by 4.9% in the third quarter of the year in relation to the same period of 2020, to stand at 2,648.87 euros .
This increase in labor cost, which is due to the greater number of hours actually worked and the decrease in hours not worked for technical, economic, organizational, production, and / or force majeure reasons (including the time not worked of those affected by ERTE), has moderated compared to the one registered in the second quarter, when it shot up by 13.2%, a record in 21 years, when compared to the confinement quarter.
With the rise in the third quarter, the labor cost has already risen for three quarters after another three negative quarters, which started precisely in the second quarter of 2020 coinciding with the entry of many workers into temporary employment regulation files (ERTE) , which are not remunerated with salaries, but with benefits paid by the State Public Employment Service (SEPE), in some cases supplemented by the companies themselves.
The labor cost is made up of the wage cost and the other costs. Between July and September, salaries (all salaries, both in cash and in kind) rose by 5% year-on-year, reaching an average of 1,952.37 euros per worker and month, a figure that exceeds that of the same pre-pandemic quarter (1,876 , 95 euros in the second quarter of 2019).
Other costs (non-salary costs) totaled 696.50 euros in the third quarter of the year, with a year-on-year increase of 4.5%.
During the third quarter, the agreed average weekly working hours, jointly considering full time and part time, was 35.1 hours. Of these, 7.5 hours were lost per week, of which 0.5 hours were not worked for technical, economic, organizational, production and / or force majeure reasons, while 6.1 hours were not worked due to vacations and parties; 0.4 hours are due to temporary disability leave and 0.5 hours are due to other causes (maternity leave, paternity leave, strikes).
According to the INE, the labor cost per effective hour fell by 0.3% in the annual rate in the third quarter due to the 5.2% increase in effective hours of work.
In quarter-on-quarter terms (third quarter over second quarter) and seasonally and calendar-adjusted values, the labor cost per worker increased by 0.5%.