Interview with our Managing Director, Sílvia Gabarró, on 3Cat
This week, our Managing Director, Sílvia Gabarró, had the opportunity to appear on 3Cat Info in her role as Chair of PIMEC’s Economy and Taxation Committee to discuss an issue that we believe is becoming increasingly important: the loss of employees’ purchasing power despite rising wages.
“Increasing wages in line with inflation is no longer enough to preserve purchasing power.”
During the interview, the following findings were highlighted:
“A study by the PIMEC Observatory, analysing four employee profiles, shows that gross salaries increased by 22.1%, matching cumulative inflation between 2020 and 2025. However, workers ultimately lost between 2.8% and 4% of their net purchasing power.”
These findings challenge a widely held assumption: that if salaries increase at the same pace as inflation, purchasing power is maintained. As the PIMEC Observatory demonstrates, this assumption does not reflect reality.
The main reason is that the parameters of Spain’s Personal Income Tax (IRPF), including tax brackets, tax-free allowances, deductions and tax reliefs, have not been updated. As a result, an increasing share of each salary increase never reaches employees.
For this reason, we fully support PIMEC’s proposal to introduce a regular and transparent review mechanism for these tax parameters, ensuring that salary increases granted by employers retain their real value for workers.