Spanish SMEs have not yet managed to recover pre-pandemic sales levels, while labor costs have soared by 26% in the last decade, in a context of several chained economic crises that continue to strain the competitiveness, profitability, and survival of the business fabric.
The Indicator CEPYME, prepared by the Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, and whose data from the latest Barometer has been exclusively consulted by Demócrata, analyzes the evolution of sales, costs, financing, and solvency of Spanish SMEs, warning of the stagnation of SMEs and the strong impact of costs on their viability.
The report outlines a scenario of incomplete recovery, in which the improvement of some indicators does not compensate for the structural deterioration accumulated in recent years. In the second half of 2025, the indicator rebounds slightly to 6.1 points, although it remains far from pre-2018 levels, when it exceeded 7 points.
The main factor of deterioration continues to be the increase in costs, especially labor costs. Since 2015, labor costs in SMEs have increased by 26.3%, compared to a productivity growth of 6.2%, which has caused a sharp rebound in unit labor costs. Although productivity per employee grows by 3.1% year-on-year, this progress is insufficient to offset the pressure of costs, which erode margins and keep profitability below pre-pandemic levels.
da,ksfalkfakfajlf
In parallel, the report reflects a sustained increase in operating costs, which have accumulated a rise of 25% since 2019, as well as an average growth in labor costs of 4.3% annually since 2021. This increase is intensified by the rise in the minimum wage, which has gone up by 86% between 2016 and 2026, with a particularly sharp impact on micro and small businesses, where average wages are lower due to their lower productivity. The result is a growing gap between business sizes, with greater pressure on the smaller sector.
Regarding activity, sales continue to grow, but without recovering pre-pandemic levels. In nominal terms, they increase by 6.3% year-on-year, although in real terms the advance is reduced to 4.9%. Compared to 2019, small businesses have increased their sales by 12.4% and medium-sized businesses by 20.9%, which shows that the recovery remains incomplete. In employment, SMEs grow by 1.8%, but with a clear slowdown and weakness in micro-enterprises, which have chained together 12 quarters with increases below 0.9%.
fa,jfnakjfajkfakf
The dynamism of employment is also unequal: of the 493,500 jobs created in the last year, 67% correspond to large companies, while SMEs contribute 33%. Microenterprises barely generate 2.8% of the total. In parallel, the business fabric shows signs of fragility, with minimal growth in the number of SMEs and an accumulated decrease in microenterprises compared to pre-pandemic levels. Added to this is a 15% increase in insolvency proceedings, to 3,212 procedures in the last quarter of 2025, one of the highest records in the historical series.
CEPYME concludes that the Spanish SME operates in a scenario of light and shadow: a certain improvement in activity, but with persistent structural imbalances. The hardening of costs, wage pressure, financial tensions, and geopolitical uncertainty shape an environment of rising risks, especially for smaller companies. The organization insists on the need for a regulatory and economic framework that strengthens competitiveness and allows for the recovery of growth capacity.