The joint sales of large companies, after discounting the effect of prices and adjusted for seasonality and calendar, reduced their growth rate in May to 1.8%, while employment and remuneration maintained their strength, with increases of 2.7% and 2.5%, respectively.
According to the statistics released this Thursday by the Tax Agency, the growth in sales (1.8%) was one and a half points below that registered in April, mainly due to the slowdown in turnover in the domestic market, despite the strong advance in the external sector.
In detail, domestic sales rebounded by 1.2% in May, clearly below the 3% recorded in April. By destination, turnover linked to consumption barely fell by one tenth compared to the previous month (from 2.2% to 2.1%), while sales associated with investment cooled by three and a half points (from 4.3% in April to 0.8% in May).
Within this last block, the trend was similar between components: the growth in sales of equipment and software moderated by slightly more than two points, to 3.1%, and sales related to construction again showed negative rates (-5.5%), after the slight rebound in the previous month.
In contrast, exports experienced a solid increase of 6% in May, prolonging the improvement observed in the previous two months. This advance is supported by both the strong increase in sales to third countries (7.3% compared to 4.9% in April) and the acceleration of exports to the EU (5% compared to the previous 3.4%).
EMPLOYMENT MAINTAINS ITS GROWTH RATE
As for salaried employment, measured by the number of recipients of labor income, an increase of 2.7% was registered in May, practically the same as in April and in line with the trend so far this year. "This figure only confirms the persistence in the pace of job creation," highlighted the Tax Agency.
Regarding the average gross income, the rebound in May (2.5%) also confirms the stabilization observed in wage increases since the second half of last year.