The Cuesta Duarte Institute of the trade union center PIT-CNT estimates that the recovery of salary after their fall due to the coronavirus pandemic, it will not start in 2022.
The entity’s statement is one of the conclusions of the Quarterly Salary Report made based on the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics in its documents on the Average Salary Index (IMS).
In the document, Cuesta Duarte explains that during the third quarter of the year “the interannual variation of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was in percentages similar to that of the IMS, in the environment of 9.5% to 10%, approximately” .
As a result of the foregoing, the entity assures that the recovery process “of remunerations in real terms” that were announced “from mid-2021 to the third quarter of 2022” has not yet begun “according to the data that arise from comparing the IMS with inflation”.
The text highlights that “the purchasing power of the average salary is 3.6% below what it had in the third quarter of 2019.” Likewise, it ensures that it is “3.5% lower than the average for the entire year 2019”.
This occurs, according to Cuesta Duarte, due to the “inflationary acceleration” that has taken place since the pandemic. This is added to the “reduced salary adjustment for state workers in January 2021” and the launch of the “bridge round of Salary Councils” in the private sector. The document ensures that this, plus “the insufficient percentages of salary adjustment provided for in the guidelines of the Executive Power” not only prevented the recovery of wages “but also continued the loss trajectory.”
Real salary will be below the average in 2021
The report indicates that after “some pro-inflation corrections” were applied in July of this year, the fall in wages stopped. However, it ensures that at the end of 2022 “the average real salary, on average, will be somewhat below the 2021 average.”
In addition, Cuesta Duarte ensures that the purchasing power of the average salary turns 31 in deterioration. Likewise, he affirms that even if at the end of 2024 or 2025 it recovers the pre-pandemic level, it would be four years of loss of economic well-being.
The Institute indicates that as a consequence of the incidence of the first semester of 2022, which was very negative, “we are going to a new year of falling average real wages” in real averages.
“The process of beginning to recover the level of real wages prior to the pandemic, which was to begin in July 2021 as announced by the government, is postponed to 2023,” he maintains.
