Mobile Tech & Gadgets

salary is one of the main culprits

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Bill Gates once said: “You have to enjoy what you do every day.” However, one in three Spaniards says they are not satisfied with their current job. An insufficient salary, too long hours or lack of recognition are the main arguments for this discontent. The hospitality industry is burned. According to data from a study carried out by the job offers portal Jobatus.es that has published Newsworkonly 28.7% of Spaniards are completely satisfied in their job. However, this satisfaction varies by sector. The sector with the happiest and most satisfied employees is technology, with 40.2% satisfaction among respondents, followed by Energy and environment with 38.9% and Education with 34.5%. The professionals with higher rates of dissatisfaction are those in the hospitality industry, of whom only 19.7% claim to be comfortable in their work, followed by employees in the retail sector with 22.4% and the construction sector with 23.1%. satisfaction. The salary is not convincing. One of the most repeated arguments to explain this job dissatisfaction is receiving an insufficient salary, where 53.5% believe that they receive a lower salary than they deserve. The second reason for job dissatisfaction is work time. commuting to workin which 45.6% say that they spend too much time getting from home to work, and long for the times of teleworking or would like a job closer to home. The work environment within the company is also a cause of dissatisfaction since it contributes to raising stress levels. 28.3% of workers claim that they do not receive enough recognition, despite making an effort to do their job well, while 18.9% attribute their dissatisfaction to a toxic work environment that demotivates them. The limitations to ascend and the imbalance between personal and work life are also reasons for dissatisfaction for 17.4% and 14.7% respectively. Dissatisfaction depends on where you live. Data from Jobatus.es reveal that respondents living in Navarra were those who showed the highest satisfaction with their work with 42.3%, followed by the Basque Country with 39.8% satisfaction among its workers. At the opposite extreme is Andalusia, which with 21.5% is the autonomous community with the greatest job dissatisfaction, due to lower salaries and longer duration in employment contracts. They are followed by the Canary Islands, with 23.1% employee satisfaction, and Extremadura with 24.3%. Salary increases. The data points to salary as the main obstacle to job satisfaction, despite the fact that economic data indicates that companies have raised salaries by an average of 3.5%, according to data from the consulting firm KPMG. The Government has also contributed to maintain purchasing power of salaries by increasing the Minimum Interprofessional Salary up to 1,134 euros in 14 payments. However, the increase in prices and inflation has made the shopping cart absorb the salary increase, diluting the perception of that increase. In Xataka | Although salaries have risen 8% in Spain, an upward trend emerges: poor workers Image | Pexels (Vitaly Gariev)

end reclining seats

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We have a love hate relationship with reclining airplane seats. They are great if you want to nap more comfortably, but if you don’t and the passenger in front of you does, that can be quite annoying. The airlines know this, and are considering their disappearance forever. These seats also impose other problems on airlines. They are more likely to break down, but they also add weight to the seats, something that does not help final fuel consumption. Some airlines don’t even offer that button on coach seats, while seats began to appear in the late 2000s.”pre-reclined“, lighter and that fixed the backrest at an intermediate angle: neither completely upright nor completely reclined. British low-cost airline Jet2 was one of the first to use them in 2009, and British Airways also began using them later for flights lasting less than four hours. Ryanair he charged them directly in 2004 as a measure to make better use of space. The airline then commented how this would allow it to save about two million euros a year. And when it doesn’t try to save for it, it tries to make its users pay more with debatable ideas. Like for example, travel standing. There are many other cases: in 2019 Delta reduced the degree of inclination of its seats from four inches to just two inches for economy class, and from 5.4 inches to 3.5 inches for first class. American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines They also limited reclining to two inches on domestic flights There are a couple of clear additional factors in the partial or complete disappearance of that option. The first, that airlines can eliminate the possibility of choosing reclining seats in economy class and charge those seats as an interesting extra to raise the price of tickets. After all, the future seems prone to the appearance of “premium” middle class seats. Reimagining the airplane seat The other, of course, is space savings. According to CNNif an airline can save 2.5 cm of space per row, that will be equivalent to about 76 cm on a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320. Or what is the same: a whole extra row of seats. There are several attempts to revolutionize the seating arrangement. For example, with double height seats like those devised by the young Spanish entrepreneur Alejandro Núñez Vicente. There are also curious designs that they reposition the middle seatusually the worst rated when traveling by plane or unique ideas —or maybe terrible— like that of the inverted seats. For now, yes, airlines are betting on pre-reclined seats. This is indicated in the aforementioned CNN article, which gives the example of the manufacturer Recaro, one of the firms that is taking advantage of the trend to equip airline planes with their seats. To find out the degree of inclination – in Recaro it is light and ranges between 15 and 18 degrees – the concept “max pax” is used used by industry. That is, the maximum count of passengers that each plane is certified to be able to transport. In an Airbus 321neo, for example, it is up to 244 passengers if everyone traveled in economy class, but when the front part is used for the traditional first and business class seats, the seats are considerably reduced and drop below 150 passengers. . Even so, traditional seats are “slimming” in parallel with the rest of the techniques. It changes the structure and becomes thinner right in the part where travelers have their knees to allow them to be more comfortable. That extra space for the knees, of course, is usually another argument to raise the price of the ticket. The advantages of eliminating reclining seats are obvious on short-haul flightsbut things change with longer flights. Meanwhile, if you are going to travel by plane, it may not be a bad idea to let the passenger behind you know if we are going to recline the seat. Image | Aleksei Zaitzev In Xataka | Obesity is a growing problem, so airlines have opted for a drastic measure: weighing travelers In Xataka | First class seats are a thing of the past. Airlines now want absurdly luxurious business class *An earlier version of this article was published in January 2024

Even Sony, creator of the format, abandons it

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No one is aware that the physical format is experiencing a real debacle: more and more player manufacturers have been abandoning the format. panasonic, sony and Oppo They stopped doing it in 2018, Samsung in 2019 and LG in December 2024. But The last one who announced his abandonment has something symbolic: it is Sony, inventor of the Blu-Ray format, who has announced that it is stopping manufacturing several physical formats, after announcing a series of layoffs at its factories. In addition to recordable Blu-Rays, in February it will stop manufacturing MiniDiscs and MiniDV tapes, formats that were already clearly obsolete. The company has confirmed it in a message on your website where it also makes it clear that there will be no models that will succeed these formats, so it is not that it is seeking to evolve what we have already known, as Blu-Ray succeeded DVD. Once stock is exhausted, they will not be restocked in stores. This is a commercially logical decision that will devastate collectors and that destroys the intention of other brands, such as LG, to return to manufacturing players if the winds sounded favorable in the future. With this notice from Sony, the format is effectively adjusted, since We are not talking about a mere manufacturer of record playersbut from one of the most important manufacturers of the discs themselves. Significantly, apart from support the manufacturing of the new formatSony was its main distributor thanks to the expansion of Playstation consoles. Both the PS3, as well as the subsequent 4 and 5, included a Blu-Ray reader, and were decisive in establishing not only the format in the video game industry, but also in the film industry. Also very significantly, it is in recent years, when the format has begun to decline in favor of digital, both Microsoft and Sony have announced versions without a disc reader of their consoles. Playstation 5 Pro has been the first console to be launched without a version with disk readerwhich must be purchased separately. Header | B137 on Wikipedia In Xataka | I have been testing the best TVs on the market for more than 20 years and these are the films I use to analyze their image quality

In 1930, Japan sent rabbits to an island to test chemical weapons. A century later something is killing the creatures

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In the quiet region of the Seto Inland Sea, three km off the coast of the Japanese city of Takehara, in Hiroshima prefecture, lies Ōkunoshimabetter known as Usagi Jima or Rabbit Island. Today, the island is famous for being home to hundreds of wild rabbits that roam freely fed by tourists and living without predators. However, behind this idyllic image hides a dark past. In World War II the island was a secret center for the production of chemical weapons by the Imperial Japanese Army. The rabbits are “children” of that experiment, and now they are dying. A secret from the past. During the 1930s and 1940s, Ōkunoshima was the epicenter of the manufacture of so-called mustard gasphosgene and other chemicals used by Japan against Chinese soldiers and civilians. Estimates suggest that These toxic agents caused around 80,000 deathsand to test the effects that those experiments had a small rabbit fauna was launched onto the island which was increasing in number. To give us an idea, the strategic importance of the island was such that was removed from Japanese maps to keep their activities secret. Since then, there has been speculation that the number of current rabbits are direct descendants of those used in the poison gas testing experiments at the island’s military laboratory. According to Professor Ellis Kraussfrom the University of California, San Diego, most of the test rabbits were slaughtered by American forces after the Japanese surrender in 1945, but those that escaped their fate transformed the place. Rabbits and more rabbits. Therefore, and given that it seems unlikely that there are surviving creatures that inhabited the place during the military era, the question has always been to discern which are direct descendants and which are not, in which case, where the hell did they come from? One of the most accepted theories suggests that, in 1971, a group of students released about eight extra rabbits on the island. The absence of predators, the prohibition of hunting and the inability to keep pets such as cats or dogs have allowed the population to grow uncontrollably until it reaches approximately 1,000 individuals today. The impact of tourism. Although rabbits have made Ōkunoshima a very popular and tourist destinationthe increase in visitors has generated serious environmental and animal welfare problems. As? The practice of feeding rabbits inappropriate foods, such as cabbage, has led to digestive problems and nutritional deficiencies, reducing their life expectancy to just two yearsmuch less than in natural conditions. Besides, feeding dynamics are inconsistent: On sunny days and holidays, tourists provide large quantities of food, while on rainy days or out of season the animals are left without supplies, facing a shortage of resources, since the island’s vegetation has been devastated by overpopulation. And if all this were not enough, a mystery surrounds the island these days. They are dying without explanation. According to the Japanese authorities, More than 70 rabbits have died in circumstances not yet clarified. Last Thursday, Police arrested a man identified as Riku Hotta25, on suspicion of having kicked at least one rabbit on the island. The animal reportedly died shortly after the incident, prompting authorities to investigate whether there is a connection between Hotta and the discovery of those 77 carcasses. between November 26 and January 12. The bodies of the 77 rabbits were apparently found with unnatural injuries, such as broken bones, which has further sparked concern among authorities and tourists. Possible causes of death. As we said, despite the arrest, authorities have not yet determined a conclusive cause for the death of the creatures. However, Japan’s Ministry of Environment has indicated that Possible reasons could include: Infectious diseases, which could have spread due to the high population density and irregular diet provided by tourists. Adverse weather conditions, especially the cold of winter, could be affecting the rabbits, whose food depends largely on occasional visitors. Human factors, such as acts of cruelty or negligence, since there have been cases of visitors not following animal care guidelines. In this regard, and given that the suspect (Hotta) is not a resident of the island, but of Otsu, in Shiga prefecture, located halfway across the country, it is being investigated whether he made sporadic visits to carry out said attacks. Meanwhile, the Japanese government has stressed that is working together with veterinarians and animal welfare organizations to identify the causes of these deaths, and does so while reinforcing surveillance and monitoring of the island to prevent future incidents. Future measures. There is no doubt that in a society like Japan, where pets occupy a prominent place, the incident has prompted calls to strengthen the island’s security and improve regulations to protect rabbits from possible aggressors. Options are being studied such as the installation of surveillance cameras, access restrictions and awareness campaigns to guarantee the well-being of the animals and the sustainability of the island as a tourist destination. The paradox of an island with a dark past. Rabbit Island represents a fascinating example of how a place’s military past can be transformed into a tourist attraction. Furthermore, it also highlights the challenges of human intervention (once again) in ecosystems. Image | Chih-Wei In Xataka | Japan sent the wrong creature to eradicate snakes from an island. The disaster was so big that it took half a century to solve it In Xataka | In 1940, a creature snuck onto an island in the United States and devoured everything. Today two of the species most feared by humans coexist alone

A study reveals which technological profile will be the most sought after and best paid in 2025: interface designer

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Choosing the right career at the right time can be the key to building a successful, well-paying career. Like every January, the employment platform Adecco presents its Adecco IT & Digital Salary Guidewhich analyzes the technological professions with the greatest demand forecast and, more importantly, with the best remuneration for non-managerial positions. That is, salaries between 35,000 and 45,000 euros. A technological engine. According to data from the study, the technology sector in Spain is boomingand already contributes 24% to the national GDP, although this percentage also includes technological activities derived from the digitalization processes of other sectors such as agriculture, industry or the services sector. Adecco assures that the IT sector has generated 26,267 new affiliates in the last year, and the professionals with technological profiles They are the most demanded by companies, ranking among the top five in autonomous communities such as Andalusia or Catalonia. UX Designers, the most in demand. The Adecco study points out the rise in demand for specialized professionals in the design of digital interfaces or UX/UI Designers. This profile is responsible for designing the way in which users should interact correctly with digital products, whether web pages, application interfaces and even the use menus of digital kiosks or sales terminals. Adecco also highlights the high demand that Customer Experience Specialist profiles, SEO/SEM experts, Social CRM Managers or Traffickers who are in charge of planning online advertising campaigns will have. And the best paid. In the salary estimate that Adecco makes in its study, two business scenarios are considered depending on whether you are going to work in a large multinational company or in an SME, and it classifies it into three scales conditioned on experience in the sector in ranges of three. , five or more than 10 years. A user interface designer with more than 10 years of experience is estimated to have an annual salary of around 49,000 euros gross if he works in a multinational, and 45,000 euros per year if he works in an SME. The place of residence matters a lot. Something that the salary ranges estimated by Adecco show is that the salary amount is not only influenced by working for a large multinational company or an SME, there is also a large salary gap depending on the autonomous community in which the job offer is created. We have already mentioned that a UX/UI designer can charge between 40,000 and 49,000 euros per year depending on the type of company. That would be if the job were in Barcelona. In Madrid, the same position would lower its salary range to between 35,000 and 40,000 euros, while, in Murcia, the salary for that position would plummet to a range of between 25,000 and 20,000 euros. A substantial difference for the same professional profile. Web designer, in an SME and in Murcia. The worst salary option in the table is found in the salary profile of web designers who are going to work in an SME in Murcia. The data foresees a salary range of 18,000 euros gross per year, and 20,000 euros for web designers who work for a multinational in that community. In Xataka | A study has compared the gap in public salaries vs. private companies in Europe and has found a problem: Spain Image | Unsplash (Kelly Sikkema)

wants to overthrow Einstein’s special theory of relativity

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Quarks, the elementary particles that make up the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus, are fermions. And electrons, too. There are several types, although physicists like to talk more about ‘flavors’: above (up), below (down), charm (charm), strange (strange), top (top) and background (bottom). The most frequent in ordinary matter are the up and down quarksalthough the one that interests us the most in this article is the top quark for a very interesting reason: it is the heaviest elementary particle that we can find in nature. An interesting note given that we are moving in the field of fermions: supersymmetry is a theoretical model of particle physics that proposes the existence of a hypothetical particle that is paired with each of the fundamental particles that we know. It seeks to explain the existing relationship between the bosonswhich have a spin with an integer value, and fermions, which have a half-integer spin. However, it is important that we do not overlook that it is a hypothetical theoretical framework that, therefore, has not yet been observed in nature. Not even experimentally. CERN has investigated whether the top quark respects the special theory of relativity The quantum mechanics and the special theory of relativity formulated by Albert Einstein constitute the heart of Standard Model of particle physics. Until now, this theory by the popular German physicist has stood the test of time undaunted, but scientists do not miss the slightest opportunity when it comes to putting it in trouble. And it is ideal because it is one of the most effective strategies when what is sought is to go beyond the solid walls of the Standard Model in the hope of develop new physics. Some specific models of string theory propose that at very high energies special relativity will no longer be valid. Lorentz symmetry lies at the very core of this model. Broadly speaking, this property justifies that the experimental results are independent of orientation and speed with which the experiment is carried out in the space-time continuum. It seems like a complicated concept, but if we think about it a little carefully, it is not so complicated. Be that as it may, what is really important is that so far all the experiments that physicists have carried out have supported Lorentz symmetry. However, and here comes the most interesting part, some theories, such as specific models of string theory, propose that at very high energies special relativity will no longer be valid and experimental observations will depend on the orientation of the experiment in space. -time. If so, the Lorentz symmetry would be broken. On paper, it should be possible to identify this break in the energy level that physicists work with in the CMS particle detector from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). For months, CMS experiment researchers have meticulously analyzed the properties of the top quark pairs produced in the collisions at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). And their result is very interesting: the production rate of top quark pairs remains constant even though the direction of the LHC’s proton beams and the average direction of the top quarks produced in the experiment change depending on the time of day due to the Earth’s spin on its axis. This means that there is no preferred direction in the space-time continuum capable of conditioning the production of top quarks. And, therefore, the Lorentz symmetry is still intact. And the special theory of relativity is still valid. Image | CERN More information | ScienceDirect In Xataka | “If we achieve our goal, a revolution in physics will be unleashed”: we speak with Santiago Folgueras, physicist at CERN

In full desert, Saudi Arabia is preparing its next great energy bet with the help of a partner: China

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Saudi Arabia is facing a fiscal deficit Due to the expensive investments in projects such as The Line, which are part of their 2030 vision to diversify its economy. However, one part compensates for another, and that is that the Saudi country is focused in covering everything with solar panelsbut it has not taken into account until now where it could store energy. Short. Saudi Arabia has officially connected the largest energy storage system (Bess) in the world in Bisha, province of ‘Asir. The project has achieved a milestone in the country’s strategy due to a 500 MW/2000 MWh battery system. The operating company is Saudi Electric Company and uses advanced technology supplied by ByD. A larger initiative. The project, called Bisha Bess, is part of a broader initiative of the Arab country to further strengthen your renewable energy infrastructure. The nation is looking for more than half of its energy to come from renewable energiesso you have seen in storage the necessary component for this transition. Saudi Arabia has found that the batteries provide flexibility to the network and allows the integration of intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind. Apart from being part of the National Vision 2030 Plan, Bisha Bess is part of different large -scale storage initiatives. In an ongoing tender, the list of 33 prequalified bidders was published in early January and revealed that Masdar, Acwa Power, EDF and Totalenergies compete for 15 -year storage service contracts. 122 storage units. The Chinese company byd have prefabricated the 122 units, each integrates a 6MW energy conversion system (PCs) along with four iron and lithium phosphate batteries (LFP) batteries, each with a capacity of 5,365MWH. The design is modular to optimize space, improve system integration and minimize failure points. Desert construction. Although the batteries were supplied by the Chinese company byd, the project was carried out by a consortium formed by State Grid Corporation of China and Alfanar Projectswho were in charge of engineering, equipment acquisition and installation construction. The installation, located in an extremely challenging desert environment, has presented significant difficulties, such as high temperatures and frequent sand storms. To deal with these obstacles, the engineers perfected the installation techniques and optimized the start -up processes, ensuring the reliability of the long -term system. If you can’t with them, join them. This famous phrase can be attributed to the Saudi kingdom, who has thought about China. At the time he began to enter this race for the renewables, Arabia Saudi began to great. However, in the field of Megaestructures and renewablethe Asian giant has no rival. Although the Arab country is developing different projects in renewables, others that also integrate clean sources such as the city of Neom, is not having the expected success. However, there is a sector where you could compete with China: nuclear energy. The kingdom has the ability to Extract and process Uranium, which would position him as a key actor. Image | Red Sea Project SA Xataka | Saudi Arabia has just opened another of its colossal projects: the world’s longest driver transport system

Announces a data center almost as large as Manhattan and up to 65,000 million investment

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We are witnessing how the race is accelerated for the development of the artificial intelligence (AI). After Stargate ad, An initiative of 500,000 million dollars that promises to greatly benefit OpenAIthe target movement arrives. The social networks giant plans to invest up to 65,000 million dollars this year to consolidate its role in this strategic area. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, has said In a publication in Threads that part of this money will be used in the construction of a data center of more than 2 gigawatts. According to their size, data centers to hyperscala may need from megawatts to gigawatts of power. In this case, we are facing an installation that “could cover a significant part of Manhattan.” A huge effort … and staggered As expected, not the entire planned cluster will start operating at the same time. Goal expects to put online around 1.3 million GPU Specialized for the end of the year, which will require 1 power gigavatio. The works will continue to reach the power stop in the following months with the objective of promoting the main long -term target products and businesses. But the Menlo Park company also has some more immediate purposes: it wants it to call 4, A model of AI that is expected to arrive this yearbecome a latest generation leader. We can interpret this as an online missile for Openai and its most advanced models, such as GPT-4O. Goal also wants to develop an AI Engineer system. An overlap of the Metca Data Center on Manhattan The Meta calls have pleasantly surprised the industry. Yes ok Zuckerberg is stubborn to use the term Open Source incorrectlythese products are available to most users and offer good results. In addition, they give life to the generative functions used by millions of users of Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp through Goal AI. For a while, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud cloud infrastructure have been one of the most outstanding market. Now we are seeing how companies such as Openai and Meta allocate billions of dollars to mount their own hardware. In this reconfiguration Nvidia is presented as one of the great winnersbecause it is the one who supplies most of the specialized GPUs for Ia. Images | Mark Zuckerberg | Goal In Xataka | China is closely monitoring the United States movement with Stargate. And your answer has already prepared

Someone has asked video game developers what they are being dedicated and the answer has been Unani: A PC

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The PC is the most complete platform to play. While a console binds us to pre -installed hardware, a PC admits the constant update of the components, allows us to access more gross power, all kinds of settings in the games and well, it allows us to do many other things that are not playing. The PC, ultimately, is important and is increasinglysomething that is demonstrated in the State of the Industry Report 2025 That the game developers conference has just published. The data. According to the report, 80% of the more than 3,000 developers who have completed the survey sent by the GDC are developing PC games. The figure contrasts with the consoles. Only 38% of developers are working on games for PlayStation 5 And something less, 34%, work in games for Xbox Series x|S. GDC survey results | Image: GDC Brutal growth. The percentage of developers making games for PC has not stopped increasing. In 2020 it was 56%. In 2021 it went to 58%. In 2022 the figure grew to 22%. In 2023 it was 65% and last year, 66%. The jump has been huge for a year so far and is proof that PC gaming is more alive than ever. Only last year 19,000 games were published only in Steamwhich says a lot. Another thing is that all those games end, indeed, playing. Spoiler: No. 80% barely played. The reason? From the GDC they are not clear, but they believe that it could be related to “the growing popularity of the Steam Deck De Valve “. According to the report,” this year’s survey has not highlighted Steam (or Valve’s laptop) as its own platform, because it is a PC and Mac game center. But it seems that some developers do They consider it a unique platform. For example, when they were asked to name other platforms that interest them, almost half (44%) wrote Steam Deck. “ If something has taught us Nintendo with his Nintendo Switch is that the portable format works and likes. Valve has done it greatly with the Steam Deck and the alternatives are increasingly complete and powerful. It is normal for developers to look at this format with interest, to the point that Microsoft works on their own console. As a curious fact, only 20% of the devs work in games for Nintendo Switch and only 12% for Linux, which is the basis of We are. On the other hand, it is no secret that publishing games on PC is much simpler than publishing them on consoles, so it makes sense that the PC is the first great option. Image | Unspash The bias. The GDC survey is quite revealing, but it has a problem. 58% of respondents are from the United States and 16% are from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The rest of the world has a rather reduced presence and that means one thing: that the interest of one of the most important markets in the world is not reflected. We speak, of course, about China, a country in which mobile gaming is religion. Although the GDC survey shows that 28-29% of developers work in mobile games, the truth is that, if there is a greater presence of Chinese, Japanese and Korean respondents, the photo would be very different. The mobile would probably be one of the big platforms for two reasons: scope and income. The Middle Gaming PC. According to Steam datathe average PC player has a Windows 11, 16 GB of RAM, a processor between 2.3 and 2.69 GHz, a GeForce RTX 3060 NVIDIA, a FullHD monitor and a storage tea installed. Cover image | Unspash In Xataka | Switch 2 appears to be more of the same. But that is exactly the strategy that Nintendo needs right now

€8,000 average debt for each tenant

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In Spain, becoming a homeowner is not simple task. Neither is being a tenant. After years getting more expensive almost uninterruptedly, rental prices have reached their highest level since at least 2006. And that, among other things, has led to a very significant percentage of Spanish households (higher than the rest of the European Union) are squeezing more than advisable their wallets to meet their landlords every month. Now we know a fact: to what extent this perfect storm, a mixture of skyrocketing rents, loss of purchasing power and homes overloaded of expenses, is increasing defaults among tenants. The big question is… Is late payment the canary in the mine of the housing crisis facing the country? Although the situation today is different from that of 20 years ago, in the run-up to the real estate crisis of 2008 it was certainly a clear ‘red flag’. One piece of information: 7,957 euros. Studies are just that: studies. With its biases and limitations. a few days ago Rental Observatorya platform powered by Rental Insurance and in which the King Juan Carlos University, threw one with an interesting approach: its authors analyzed the levels of late payments that the Spanish residential rental market endured over the past year and discovered that the level of non-payments has grown significantly. As a summary, they leave out a figure: 7,957.6 euros. And what does it mean? That is the average delinquency that, according to the calculations Rental Observatory, was recorded last year among urban rentals in Spain: 7,957 euros. The data is interesting for several reasons. The first is its amount, which is equivalent to seven months of income. The second is that it shows that the problem of non-payments is getting worse in Spain. Those almost 8,000 euros represent a 4.23% increase with respect to the previous year. Curious yes, surprising no. The percentage is interesting, but probably surprises few in the sector. After all, it arrives in a context marked by the increase in price of rents after years of increases and the high overexertion rate that weighs down the pockets of Spanish tenants. “The debt increases continuously year after year, in the same way as prices and the financial effort that landlords dedicate to paying the rent,” add the report. Its authors recall in fact that the average rental price stood at 1,117 euros last year in Spain and, on average, tenants dedicated 34% of their income to paying their landlords. What’s more, the 4.23% increase in delinquencies between 2023 and 2024 shows a certain slowdown in the expansion of delinquencies; but the observatory doesn’t think that’s a good sign. If in 2024 defaults have grown at a slower rate than other years in Spain, it is due, their technicians clarifybecause fewer houses have simply been rented. “In any case, it represents a considerable amount of debt.” Three facts to reflect on. Rental Insurance is dedicated to the management of leases, making it an involved party in the market; But there are other observatories that help to understand to what extent things have become complicated for tenants. The first is the drift of rents. Idealistic calculate that in Spain, at a general level, the m2 of rental housing costs 13.5 euros, 11.5% more than a year before and almost double the €7.2 that was charged in 2014. This evolution has little to do with that recorded in salaries. The INE tables show that in 2022 the average income per inhabitant was at 14,082 euros facing the 9,098 of 2012. In general and taking into account the CPI drift, BBVA Research estimated Recently, since 2020, we Spaniards have suffered a loss of purchasing power of around 20%. In short: much more expensive housing and households with less economic muscle to pay for it. The tenants, suffocated. The third key has a lot to do with the previous two and is the “overexertion rate.” A few months ago, CaixaBank Research calculated it taking into account the percentage of households that are forced to allocate more than 40% of their income to pay for their homes, both bills and rent to their landlords or mortgages, depending on whether they live on rent or own. It turned out that in the specific case of the tenants that indicator was 30.6%. Why is it important? Because it is well above the EU average, where the rate of overexertion among tenants is of 20.3%, and of course that of homeowners who pay mortgages (4.4%). The data reflects that it is common for tenants to spend more money on their home than they should taking into account their income level. In general, the Bank of Spain advises That this economic effort does not exceed 35% of the salary. In 2020, an average Spaniard booked 41% of your gross salary to meet their landlords. “A close relationship”. These data are not trivial. The observatory appreciate “a very close relationship between average late payment and the financial effort” that tenants make to pay their rents. “Generally, those areas where tenants dedicate most of their income to rent coincide with those with the highest level of debt,” they clarify. And for example, a fact: in the 10 provinces where tenants dedicate more than 35% of their earnings to rent, late payments far exceed or are close to 6,000 euros on average. Question of how much… and where. The Rental Observatory study raises another interesting idea: late payment in the rental market is increasing in Spain, but not in all regions equally. The greater increases They have been recorded in the Valencian Community (7.21%) and the Balearic Islands (6.8%) and the Canary Islands (6.79%), while in Extremadura the increase was noticeably smaller, 1.76%. The photo also changes considerably if we look at the amount of the average debt. In Catalonia it stands at 10,996 euros, in the Balearic Islands at 10,233 and in Madrid at 9,812, three figures significantly higher than the national average (7,957) and that far exceed the data for … Read more

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