Citation
(2011), "Spain needs corrective action", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 60 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2011.07960eaa.010
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Spain needs corrective action
Article Type: From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 60, Issue 5
Above-average inflation – and its linkage to wage levels - during the boom years pushed wage levels in Spain higher than those in larger economies such as Germany. Spain’s unemployment rate is now over 20 per cent.
Linking wage increases to consumer price rises has, say critics, priced the Spanish worker out of large parts of the European labour market. Germany and France have called for the practice to be scrapped as part of an EU competitiveness pact.
“The way in which salaries are fixed has to change. When the economy was shrinking in 2009, salaries rose by 4 per cent due to these agreements and … these types of situation make a reform essential,” according to Bank of Spain head of economic studies Jose Luis Malo de Molina.