The data indicates that salaries have not stopped rising in recent years. However, inflation has caused workers have not seen that rise as an improvement in their purchasing power due to the general increase in the price of the shopping basket.
A recent study carried out by Randstad ensures that Spanish companies are responding to the rise in prices with salary increases with the aim of retaining their workers and avoiding a greater evil: the talent shortage.
Keep employees happy. According to the report ‘Workmonitor 2026’ prepared by the Randstad employment platform, 63% of Spanish companies have increased the salaries of their employees to counteract the increased cost of living in recent years. This figure exceeds the global average of 56% of companies. This percentage indicates a greater sensitivity of Spanish companies towards loss of purchasing power of their templates.
According to the report ‘Salary evolution 2007-2025’ prepared by Eada Business School of Barcelona and the consulting firm ICSA Grupo, small companies are those that have presented the largest salary increase during 2025, with an estimated increase of 5.50% for their employees, and 1.59% for their managers.
For 59% of workers in Spain, salary continues to be the main factor when choosing a company, in a context of general increase in the price of the shopping basket.
The priority is talent retention. The Randstad report explains that companies prefer to raise the salaries of their current employees even above the CPI in order to retain them, instead of losing them and having to hire new staff. 69% affirm that retaining an employee is cheaper and more efficient than hiring a new one.
The report highlights that this commitment to retaining internal talent helps to stabilize staff in the face of economic pressures, thus avoiding having to incur additional expenses with the selection and training of new employees in a context of shortage of trained personnel.
Flexibility as the key to staying. Beyond the economic factor, flexibility and autonomy when working have a great weight in permanence of employees in a company. Randstad estimates that 42% of professionals have left a job because their schedules did not fit with their personal life, and 24% did so due to a lack of independence in making decisions about their work.
The data indicates that 43% of workers would not accept a job that did not have flexibility in schedule or the possibility of teleworking some days. On the other hand, 74% of the companies consulted consider that giving more autonomy increases the commitment and productivity of their employees by making them responsible for the organization of their work. According to Oriol Mas, CEO of Randstad Enterprise, “the ability to decide how, when and in what way you work increasingly outweighs job stability.”
More than one job to survive. Despite the salary increases indicated by the study, the data also indicates that 34% of Spanish talent has accepted or is looking for a second job to face the rising cost of living. This figure rises to 48% among young people aged 18 to 26 and is below the world average of 40%, reflecting the economic pressure they are suffering. the new generations.
According to the ‘Balance of the labor market in 2025’ elaborated According to the USO union, some 886,800 people in Spain are in a situation of multiple employment, continuing with the upward trend in the need to have several jobs to survive that has been emerging since the COVID-19 pandemic. To put it in context, in 2022 there were less than 450,000 people with multiple jobs.
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