70% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) declare themselves in favor of increases to the Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI), compared with 28% who are opposed, according to a report by the international insurer Hiscox, which finds predominant support from Spain’s business fabric for these wage revisions.
However, the document shows a progressive erosion of that consensus, since the current proportion is lower than the 75% recorded in 2025 and the 72% observed in 2024.
The company states that incorporating these pay improvements makes it necessary to introduce changes in companies’ financial structure. Thus, to absorb the increase in the SMI, 45% of SMEs choose to cut their commercial margins, while 33% pass part of the cost on to clients through price increases.
On the labor front, among SMEs that do not share the SMI increases, tensions are also detected in the size of the workforce: 24% of organizations decide to freeze or slow down new hiring, 15% directly assumes the additional cost of personnel, and 12% acknowledges having had to carry out layoffs linked to higher wage costs.
With regard to competition, the report indicates that although most businesses (60%) believe that the SMI does not affect their operations, the negative effect is growing, since 38% of companies say that their competitiveness has been reduced by wage increases in 2026, six points above the 32% recorded in 2025.
By branch of activity, industry is the one that feels the measure most intensely, positioning itself as the most affected sector, with 59.5% of companies declaring an adverse impact, compared with 35% in retail and 32% in services.
If the size of the workforce is considered, microenterprises (from 1 to 9 employees) are the most exposed group, with 49% who perceive a deterioration in their competitiveness, compared with 35% of medium-sized SMEs and 31% of professionals without employees.
This gap is also seen in terms of sales volume and the level of business maturity. Companies with income exceeding 2 million euros record a greater negative impact (46%) than those that generate less than 2 million (37%).
Finally, as far as the age of the business is concerned, young projects, with less than 5 years of life, suffer a more pronounced impact on their competitiveness (46%) than consolidated companies with more than a decade of track record (36%).