The Canary Islands recorded the lowest labour and wage costs in Spain in the last four months of last year, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported on Thursday, March 16.
Specifically, the archipelago had a total labour cost of 2,475.33 euros per month, at a rate of 19.33 euros per hour worked, which is 4.9% more than in the same period last year, while the wage cost reached 1,833.5 euros.
Nationally, the average labour cost per worker per month (which includes remuneration and social contributions) rose by 4.2% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, to stand at €2,996.63.
This increase in labour costs, which brings the total number of consecutive quarters of increases to eight, is two tenths of a percentage point higher than that recorded in the third quarter of 2022, when it rose by 4%.
The labour cost is made up of wage costs and other costs. Between October and December, wages (all remuneration, both in cash and in kind) rose by 4.7% year-on-year in gross terms, to an average of 2,268 euros per worker per month, the highest figure since the beginning of the series in 2000.
Hotels and restaurants was the activity where wages rose the most in the fourth quarter. Its average wage rose by 12.6% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, to 1,351.64 euros per month.
Other costs (non-wage costs) totalled 728.63 euros per worker per month in the fourth quarter of last year, a year-on-year increase of 2.8%.
During the fourth quarter of 2022, the average agreed working week, taking full-time and part-time working hours together, was 34.8 hours. Of these, 5.7 hours per week were lost, of which 2.8 hours were not worked due to holidays and public holidays; 2.3 hours were due to temporary disability leave; 0.3 hours to maternity and paternity leave, and another 0.3 hours to other leave, strikes, and technical, economic, organisational, production and/or force majeure reasons.
According to the INE, the labour cost per effective hour rose by 3.7% in annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2022 due to the increase in effective working hours.