The first vice president and minister of Economy, Trade and Business, Carlos Cuerpo, insisted this Tuesday that the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) must evolve in parallel with the average wage and preserve its purchasing power. However, he specified that the Executive will not make a decision on the increase until knowing the opinion of the committee of experts.
During a media briefing as part of an institutional visit to the space technology and telecommunications company FOSSA Systems, in Las Rozas (Madrid), Cuerpo emphasized that there is already a procedure established to analyze any revision of the SMI, whose starting point is always the report of the specialists.
As he detailed, this committee is tasked with studying the state of the economy, the evolution of prices, and other key factors before determining what the trajectory of the minimum interprofessional wage should be. "This is what we have done in recent years because it is important that the SMI remains in line with the evolution of the average wage," the Economy minister recalled.
The minister added that, once the Government has the proposal formulated by the committee of experts, the final decision on the update of the SMI for the next fiscal year will be adopted, following the same pattern applied in previous years.
"But, in any case, I believe it is important that, as the evolution of prices is going, we take into account that the SMI does not lose purchasing power," Cuerpo stressed, emphasizing the need to protect workers with lower wages against inflation.
Last week, the second vice president and minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, conveyed to the Government's advisory commission on the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) the task of presenting its proposal for an increase for 2027 before the end of this month or, at the latest, at the beginning of November.
For their part, the unions UGT and CCOO demand that the minimum wage increase by at least 7% in 2027, to 18,290.58 euros annually, equivalent to 1,306.5 euros monthly in fourteen payments, that is, about 85.5 euros more per month than currently. Annually, the union proposal would imply raising the SMI by about 1,196 gross euros over the current 17,094 euros.
"Let’s hope to know what the recommendation from the committee of experts is, just as we have done in previous years. Depending on the recommendation, we will make the decision on what the update of the SMI for next year should be," concluded Cuerpo, referring again to the technical report before closing the Government's position.