Minimum wage rose 21.6% in Portugal between 2018 and 2022 and 35.9% in Spain – Economy
In Luxembourg, the country with the highest minimum wage in the European Union (EU), the increase was 15.8%, while in Latvia, the country with the lowest wage, the variation was 39.2%, reads in the study prepared by the Portuguese and Spanish national statistical institutes, called “Iberian Peninsula in Numbers – 2022”, released today.
The document also states that Spain recorded the highest unemployment rate in the European Union in 2021 (14.8%), followed very closely by Greece (14.7%).
Portugal, with 6.6%, was 0.4 percentage points (pp) below the value calculated for the EU as a whole, with the Czech Republic being the country with the lowest record (2.8%).
The risk of poverty or social exclusion in Spain “was clearly higher (27.8%) than that recorded in Portugal (22.4%)” in 2021, with the two indicators being higher than estimated for the EU as a whole (21 .7%).
In the young population, between 15 and 29 years old, the positions were different, with the risk in Portugal (22.2%) being lower than the 31.3% in Spain and the EU average (25.3%).
The price level in 2021 was higher in Portugal than in Spain “in most aggregates considered in national accounting”, says the document, which highlights that as differentiated were ‘accessories for the home’ and ‘restaurants and hotels’.
As for ‘communications’, prices “were practically identical and remained well above the average calculated for the European Union”.
In the period between 2014 and 2021, the annual average change in the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) “followed identical trajectories between the two countries, with the exception of 2016 (changes of 0.7 pp in Portugal and – 0.4 pp in Spain, compared to the previous year)”.
In the HICP for food and non-alcoholic beverages, “only in the first year of this decade were negative values observed”, with the highest variations occurring in 2020 — Portugal 2.1 pp, Spain 2.4 pp and EU 2.5 pp.
Birth rates, in turn, followed different trends in the two countries over the 2012-2021 decade. While in Portugal mortality “was always higher than the birth rate, which in 2021 had its lowest value and greatest difference compared to mortality (-4.4 pp)”, Spain recorded in 2012 a birth rate higher by 1 .2 pp to that of mortality, reversing this trend in 2017.
In the same period, the average age of women who are mothers for the first time increased continuously in both countries, “always higher in Spain than in Portugal”, having in 2021 reached 30.9 years in Portugal and 31.5 years in Spain.
Between 2012 and 2021, early leaving of education and training was very strong in Portugal (-14.6 pp), having reached, in the end, “a value clearly lower than that calculated for the European Union”. In Spain this indicator also retreated, 11.4 pp, but, even so, “more than doubled that verified in Portugal”.
The proportion of employees with higher education is “clearly higher in Spain than in Portugal and in the European Union as a whole”, with in 2021 the expression differences differences being 12.0 pp more compared to Portugal and 10 more, 7 pp relative to the EU.
In terms of energy, Portugal, Spain and the EU were in 2020 above the target for 2030 of the contribution of renewable energies to final consumption. Portugal was 34.0% against a target of 31%, Spain 21.2% against 20% and EU 22.1% against 20%.
Between 2012 and 2021, the Gross Domestic Product ‘per capita’ in Portugal was “always lower than that seen in Spain, with differences ranging from 15 PPS [Paridades de Poder de Compra Padrão] and 12 PPS by 2019”.
“Since then, both countries have recorded falls in this indicator, which were more pronounced in Spain, so that the differences in the last two years of the series were -8 PPS and -10 PPS, respectively”, they explain in the document.
JO // JNM
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