Madrid (EFE).- The average annual earnings of workers was 25,896.82 euros in 2021, 2.9% more than the previous year and chaining eight years upward, although for women that average stood at 23,175 .95 euros and for men at 28,388.69 euros, which leaves a wage gap of 18.4%.
According to the annual salary structure survey published this Tuesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), this difference between the remuneration of men and women is reduced if similar jobs are considered (same occupation, type of contract, type of day, etc).
The INE also explains that there are many more workers in low salaries than in the highest ones, which means that the average salary is higher than both the median salary and the most frequent salary.
Thus, the median salary (the one that divides the number of workers into two equal parts, those with a higher salary and those with a lower salary) was 21,638.69 euros in 2021, an increase of 3.4%.
And the modal salary, (the one that had the highest frequency, with 563,384 employees), was around 18,503 euros, 0.1% more, although there was another one with a high frequency (560,327 employees), which was 16,487. euro.
One in four women had a salary equal to or less than the SMI
Regarding salary distribution, 25% of women had an annual salary less than or equal to the Minimum Interprofessional Salary (SMI) in 2021, compared to 10.7% of men.
The description of wage inequality is completed with the proportion of workers with low earnings (salaried earners whose hourly earnings are below 2/3 of the median), which was 16.7% in 2021.
Among these workers, 62.5% were women.
In both situations, explains the INE, the greater percentage of women who work part-time influences.
Thus, when looking at salaries by type of working day – the variable that most determines the salary level – the average annual salary in the part-time working day was 59.4% lower than in full-time.
And by type of contract, workers with temporary contracts had an average annual salary 27.1% lower than that of permanent contracts.
By activities, the one that presented the highest average annual salary in 2021 was the supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning, with 52,985.83 euros per worker, a figure that doubles the national average.
On the contrary, hospitality and administrative activities and auxiliary services had the lowest average annual salaries, with 14,632.81 and 18,118.66 euros, respectively.
These figures were 43.5% and 30% below average.
By communities, the highest salaries in 2021 corresponded to the Basque Country (31,063.68 euros per year per worker), Madrid (29,512.58 euros) and Navarra (28,459.37 euros).
These three communities, together with Catalonia, presented a gain higher than the national average.
For their part, Extremadura (21,393.01 euros), the Canary Islands (22,466.23 euros) and Andalucía (23,154.99 euros) presented the lowest salaries.