Más de 3,6 millones de trabajadores tienen blindado el sueldo ante la escalada del IPC

More than 3.6 million workers have protected their salaries against the rising IPC inflation in Spain. Companies with agreements containing salary guarantee clauses must implement an additional 1 percentage point increase to offset the average 4% annual price rise. This pressure from inflation has additional effects on businesses, adding new labor cost burdens through the update of the minimum wage that will surpass the IPC and the hikes in collective bargaining agreements.

Two circumstances coexist: first, new agreements reflect salary increases above the average (3.6%), and second, the proliferation of salary guarantee clauses will force employers to compensate workers for the significant price surge. According to official data from the Ministry of Labor as of September, a total of 3.64 million salaried workers will receive an extra in wages for having this safeguard.

Although this number represents only 19% of the total employed individuals in the Social Security system, it is noteworthy, accounting for 39% of those protected by collective bargaining agreements (9.32 million workers). These 3.64 million employees protected by a salary guarantee clause are 12.9% more than the previous year, meaning 416,039 more.

Among them, the advancement of workers with retroactive review clauses is especially notable, totaling 1.3 million, a 39% increase compared to the previous year (367,459 additional employees). Without retroactive effects of the salary review due to the IPC, there are 2.33 million workers, a 2.13% increase (48,580 additional employees).

The services sector leads the total of 3.64 million workers under salary guarantee clauses, constituting 43.3% (1.57 million people), followed by industry with 36.6% (1.33 million people), construction with 19.8% (721,525 people), and the agricultural sector with only 0.2% (9,265 people) of workers protected by this type of safeguard.

In the retroactive effects category (36% of salaried workers with clauses), services account for 22.8% of the total (870,000 people), while industry makes up 12.4% of the protected collective, and construction (0.6%) and agriculture (0.1%) show minimal retroactive clausules. Meanwhile, salary guarantees without retroactive effects dominate among collective agreements, covering 64% of all protected workers (2.33 million people).

In this category, industry leads the overall volume with 24% of salaried workers with guarantees, followed by services with 20.5% and construction with 19.2%, leaving agriculture in a marginal role with just 0.1% of the collective with clauses without retroactivity. With the average increase pact by agreement sitting at 3% and the average inflation expected to reach around 4% in September (4.9% in September), industry sources estimate the average revaluation applicable to salaries through salary guarantee clauses to be around 1%.

"In many cases, these additional hikes are limited," acknowledge industry representatives, recognizing that employers will have an effort to compensate their employees for the IPC. "These mechanisms automatically review salary tables in cases where inflation surpasses the agreed salary increases, ensuring an additional update to the earnings of hundreds of thousands of workers across sectors," Confemetal explains.

In the metal industry, for instance, there are 40 collective agreements with economic impact in 2026, of which 25 include a salary guarantee clause linked to price evolution. This involves 870,000 employees under these safeguards, representing 1.3 million workers under collective agreements. The additional salary hikes mandated by these clauses are constrained in many cases, according to industry representatives.

Nonetheless, inflationary pressures translate to collective bargaining, as many new labor agreements signed in 2026 have a 3.6% increase (six tenths above the yearly average), with some agreements and workers under their umbrella experiencing even higher wage raises. As of September, 866 agreements affecting 2.97 million workers include a 4.04% increase (one point above the average).

These agreements with larger increases affect 31% of all workers with collective agreements. To mitigate the impact of absenteeism in the context of rising production costs and labor costs, which tighten business margins, companies face increasing absenteeism pressures. Extended absences generate economic costs through salary supplements covered by collective agreements for temporary incapacity, totaling 4.8 billion euros annually according to work accident insurance mutuals.

In extreme cases, employers may need to make new hires. With unabated absenteeism costing over 33 billion euros annually to businesses and the Social Security coffers, collective agreements begin incorporating measures to minimize the impact of labor shortages.