The labor cost per hour of work, which is what the employer pays for each employee and which includes, in addition to salaries and extra payments and arrears, social contributions and other disbursements (such as training or dismissal compensation) has started the year with slight moderation. This cost grew in the first quarter at a rate of 4.5% year-on-year, compared to the 5.5% with which it closed last year, according to the corrected data for seasonal variations published this Monday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). ).
The figures are included in the quarterly Harmonized Labor Cost Index survey, which is a statistic that provides a common and comparable measure of labor cost per hour worked for the entire European Union. According to this, the slight slowdown in these costs experienced in the first quarter has been felt, more than in salaries — whose deceleration has been smaller, going from growing 4.5% year-on-year at the end of 2023 to 4.2% between January and March of this year—, in the component of other costs. This includes social contributions, extra-salary payments (such as compensation for expenses, transportation or other types of bonuses), or compensation for dismissal or end of contract; and has gone from an increase of 8.1% year-on-year at the end of last year to growing by 5.1% at the start of 2024. Likewise, the labor cost if extra payments and arrears are excluded now grows by 4.7 %, one point less than in the last quarter of the previous year.
There are eight activities in which labor costs per hour worked rise more than the national average. At the top is the information and telecommunications sector (where they increased by 7.2% year-on-year at the start of the year); followed by professional activities (6.3%); hospitality (5.9%); and administrative activities (5.5%). This greater growth in labor costs is determined by being, in general, the areas where salaries are growing the most exclusively, without taking other costs into account. Thus, in information and communications, salaries grow by almost 8% year-on-year; in professional activities, 6.1% do so; and in the hospitality industry, 5.6%. Although in all these activities salaries grow several percentage points less than at the end of 2023, in line with the general slowdown in the advance of global labor costs.
Regarding the quarterly increase (that is, when comparing them with the previous quarter and not with the same period of the previous year), the INE statistics also reflect a certain slowdown. The figures from the statistical institute present an increase of 0.8% in total labor costs per hour worked during the first three months of the year, compared to the 1.2% increase between October and December 2023. If you look even further Back, at the beginning of last year, this quarterly variation was 1.7%, which shows a consistent trend towards moderation. The 0.8% increase between January and March of this year represents the smallest quarterly advance since the third quarter of 2022.
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