It is now final and official. The more than 3.5 million public employees in Spain (with data from the Active Population Survey) will have an extra increase in their salaries of 0.5% this year, an increase that is consolidated and will also be paid on a regular basis. Retroactive from last January.
The confirmation comes from the IPCA data for the month of September published this Thursday by the INE, which raises its annual variation rate to 3.2%. This fulfills the pact that the Government reached with UGT and CC OO in the General Table of Public Administrations: if the sum of the harmonized CPI for 2022 and 2023 exceeds 6%, as has been the case, public employees will receive another 0.5% additional to the fixed 2.5% increase agreed for this year. In this way, the total increase now rises to 3%.
However, what is not totally certain is that this increase and the ‘payoff’ that public employees will receive with arrears since January will become a reality in their October payroll, as agreed. The Ministry of Finance does not take it for granted and assures that, although this is the “intention” of the Government, “we have to go step by step,” as they explained to this newspaper. Thus, they allege that first the INE has to officially communicate this information to the Ministry and, then, the agreement has to be approved again by the Council of Ministers.
Furthermore, this 3% increase that they have already assured for 2023 can even be raised by another 0.5%, although in this case its payment would be delayed until the first months of 2024, but in the same way it would be done retroactively from January 2023. It is the other fine print that the Treasury agreed with the unions: an additional 0.5% if the growth of Spanish GDP this year reaches 2.1%, something that is much more than likely, according to the latest Government forecasts and other organizations such as the OECD, Airef or the Bank of Spain.
Likewise, in 2024 they will have another fixed increase of 2%, although it will depend on whether there is a Government to collect it from January, since its materialization could be delayed if the Executive continues in office or until new budgets are approved.