Spagna, mercato lavoro, economia Wsws 06-08-30
Spagna: un decennio di boom economico e di salari
stagnanti
Paul Mitchell
In 10 anni la Spagna è passata dal 16° all’8° posto tra le
maggiori economie del mondo; ha una crescita economia annua del 3-4%, pari al
doppio della media europea.
Il FMI ha lodato le riforme di apertura economica e aumento
della flessibilità attuate dai due governi, Aznar, destra, e Zapatero, socialisti.
Il forte sfruttamento dei lavoratori giovani e degli
immigrati con questi contratti a basso costo è il principale fattore del boom
economico spagnolo.
Da un’indagine
IESE-Adecco Labour Euroindex risulta che i salari sono invece cresciuti dello
0,5 negli ultimi 10 anni, e negli ultimi due è calato.
Il salario
medio mensile lordo di un lavoratore spagnolo, prima di tasse e contributi
sociali, si aggira sui €1922; circa la metà viene spesa per l’alloggio.
Secondo la Banca di Spagna più della metà degli spagnoli
faticano ad arrivare a fine mese.
Mentre i
salari stagnano, il prezzo delle abitazioni in dieci anni è raddoppiato in
termini reali, aiutato da bassi tassi di interesse e da un aumentato
investimento immobiliare seguito al crollo del mercato azionario nel 2001.
Nel 2005 sono state avviate 800 000 nuove abitazioni,
quasi quante quelle di tutto il resto d’Europa, contro una domanda reale di
250-300 000 abitazioni.
Dato che l’80% della popolazione spagnola è proprietaria della
propria abitazione, molti lavoratori si trovano in una situazione di rischio se
gli interessi dovessero aumentare rapidamente (la maggior parte delle ipoteche
è a tasso variabile).
L’indebitamento
delle famiglie è aumentato a oltre il 110% del reddito e si avvicina ai livelli
statunitensi.
Secondo i dati più recenti l’ammontare dei prestiti ipotecari
è giunto a €811MD, +26% sul 2005.
Il tasso di
inflazione spagnolo è del 4%, contro la media europea del 2,5%; l’energia
è aumentata però del 6,8%, i trasporti del 5,8% e cibo e bevande del 4,8%.
Il nuovi posti di lavoro spagnoli rappresentano circa il 60%
dei nuovi posti di lavoro della UE; la disoccupazione è scesa al 10%dal 18% di
dieci anni fa.
MA: 1
lavoratore su 3, pari a oltre 5 milioni, ha un contratto di lavoro temporaneo,
più del doppio del resto d’Europa.
In Spagna è avvenuto un enorme trasferimento di ricchezza
dalla classe operaia all’elite borghese, con il consenso di PP e PSOE,
appoggiati dagli stalinisti della Sinistra Unita (IU) e dai nazionalisti catalani:
La Spagna è tra i primi dieci paesi al mondo per numero dei
milionari in dollari: ci sarebbero secondo la banca di investimento Merril
Lynch, 148 600 milionari circa + 6% sul 2005.
Molti di questi milionari hanno fatto fortuna con il boom
delle costruzioni e immobiliare, che conta per il 40% dell’investimento di
capitali in Spagna, e che è collegato ad una serie di scandali di corruzione.
Le istituzioni finanziarie avvertono il governo spagnolo per
la perdita di competitività e produttività del paese; il deficit statale è
giunto al 7,5% del PIL, il secondo maggiore del mondo.
Il FMI sollecita altre riforme del mercato del
lavoro, che sotto la forma di riduzione dei contratti temporanei mira in realtà
a ridurre i costi di licenziamento e di altre condizioni legate ai contratti a
tempo indeterminato; sollecita anche l’abbandono dei contratti collettivi di
lavoro, gli accordi salariali su base aziendale e la promozione di maggiore
flessibilità.
Wsws 06-08-30
Spain: A decade of economic boom and
stagnant wages
By Paul Mitchell
30 August 2006
By all accounts, Spain has experienced an economic
boom over the last decade. It has “continued its prolonged economic expansion”
(International Monetary Fund) and “weathered the international slowdown”
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) making it “one of Europe’s best-performing economies” (Economist magazine).
– Economic growth—between 3
and 4 percent a year and twice the European average—has made Spain the world’s eighth-largest
economy, up from 16th place 10 years ago.
– Companies such as the fashion
house Zara, phone operator Telefónica, construction
giant Ferrovial and real estate developer Metrovacesa
have become globally recognised names.
The
IMF has “commended” both José María Aznar’s right-wing
Popular Party government (1996-2004) and the current administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s
Socialist Party (PSOE) for implementing reforms “opening the economy, enhancing
its flexibility, and establishing stability-oriented policy frameworks.”
When the reforms were first introduced, it was
argued the release of “Spanish executives’ pent-up competitive spirit” would
increase the country’s national wealth and result in a “trickle-down” to the
less well-off.
But
what has been the result for the working class and large numbers of professional
workers in Spain
over the last decade?
– According to a recent IESE-Adecco Labour Euroindex survey produced by the University of Navarre Business
School, workers’ wages rose only
0.5 percent over the period and have actually declined in the last two years.
– Spain’s workers earn an
average of €1922 (US$2,480) per month before tax and social security payments. Nearly half of
that income is spent on accommodation. But whilst wages have stagnated, the price of houses has doubled in
price in real terms over the last decade, stimulated, in part, by
extremely low interest rates and increased investment in real estate following
the 2001 stock market crash.
– As a result, workers
have been sinking deeper into debt. Household indebtedness has risen to more than 110 percent
of income and approaches US levels. The most recent data shows the
amount of outstanding mortgage
loans stands at a record €811 billion (US$1 trillion), a rise of 26 percent
since last year. As 80 percent of Spain’s
population own their own home, many workers are in a vulnerable position
should interest rates rise sharply (most mortgages are variable rate) or Spain’s housing bubble burst. House
prices, says a recent Goldman Sachs report, may be overvalued by up to 35
percent.
Ricardo Vergés, economist for the National Institute
of Statistics (INE), told Time magazine “we’re on a direct route to catastrophe. Our children will have to pay back
amounts that will reach almost half of their incomes. It’s a kind of economic
slavery and it can’t be sustained.”
Other economists claim there will be a
“soft-landing” in the housing market, but this outcome seems unlikely given
that 800,000 new house
starts—almost as many as the rest of Europe put together—were still made in
2005 compared to a genuine demand estimated at 250,000 to 300,000 properties.
“We are not on a good path,” Rafael Pampillón, the chief economist at the
Instituto de Empresa business school, told the Economist. “It has to come to an
end, because we cannot keep building homes at this rate.”
Workers not only face high accomodation costs.
The cost of the basic
necessities are also increasing.
– Spain has an inflation
rate of 4 percent (compared to a European average of 2.5 percent), but
the increase is higher for
energy (a 6.8 percent rise), transport (5.8 percent), and food and drink (4.8
percent).
The international financial institutions have
applauded the high rate of job
creation in Spain.
It has been responsible for
some 60 percent of all the jobs created in the European Union. Unemployment has fallen over the last decade from 18
percent to less than 10 percent.
– However, this has only
been possible because one in every three workers—more than 5 million—is
employed on temporary “rubbish” contracts, more than double the EU average. The terrible
exploitation experienced by the country’s youth and immigrant workers on these
cheap labour contracts, particularly in construction and tourism (which
together generate around 30 percent of GDP), has been a key factor in Spain’s
economic boom.
It is no wonder then that more than half of Spain’s population report having
terrible trouble meeting their monthly payments, according to the Bank
of Spain.
– In contrast, a
narrow elite has seen its fortunes soar. Several appear in the Forbes list of the world’s
richest people, including the founder
of Zara, Amancio Ortega,
who came in 23rd and is worth an estimated €14.8 billion (US$19 billion).
Ortega founded his firm in
1975, the year that the dictator General Francisco Franco died, but
others have made their fortunes out of companies founded during the dictatorship.
These include the family of Rafael del Pino, who established the construction
company Ferrovial in 1952 and
is worth $6.5 billion, and the Koplowitz sisters, Alicia and Esther, whose US$5
billion fortune originates in another construction company, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas,
which was founded by their father in
1944 and has since built most
of Spain’s
motorways and bridges.
This year, for the first time, Spain has joined the top 10 countries
possessing the most dollar millionaires (or some €800,000) in terms of
liquid financial assets (cash, bank deposits, stocks and bonds). According to
the World Wealth Report produced by the investment bank Merrill Lynch, there are now 148,600 Spanish millionaires—an increase of nearly 6
percent last year. Although the report found nearly 1,500 of these millionaires had financial
assets worth more than €24 million, Spain’s tax agency reports that
only 65 people had declared they were worth more than €30 million for tax
purposes.
– Many of these new millionaires have made their fortunes
from the construction and property boom, which accounts for some 40 percent of
capital investment in Spain. But the events in Marbella, the
jet-set resort on Spain’s Costa del Sol coastline, shed some light on how others
millions have been made.
The city became synonymous with corruption under right-wing mayor Jesús Gil y Gil,
who died in 2004, shortly after the Supreme Court banned him from public office
for 28 years. Earlier this year, the council was dissolved and some 43 people
arrested, including two former ex-mayors, Marisol Yagüe and Julián Muñoz, and
19 city councillors, on charges relating to alleged planning violations with respect to construction projects. Aifos, one of the biggest real estate
companies on the Costa del Sol, has
been implicated. More than €2.4 billion in property, helicopters, cars, art and
antiques has been seized.
One of those arrested in Marbella had €378,000 in high-denomination
€500 notes. This led to revelations that such notes make up 60 percent of the
€80 billion circulating in Spain.
Spain now has a quarter of all the €500
notes in the EU compared to 3.5 percent in 2002. The notes are known in Spain as “bin
Ladens” because everyone has heard of them but never seen them. Most are believed to circulate in
the construction industry, where transactions are often carried out in cash
and real estate companies undervalue properties when they are officially
registered.
Down the coast from Marbella, the mayor of Manilva has been accused of
participating in an alleged €250 million money-laundering ring, and a former
mayor of Estepona was convicted on similar charges.
The tax agency is also investigating 18
companies that took money related to the Terra Mítica theme park, which was never
constructed. The park, partly funded by the Popular Party government in Valencia, went
bankrupt in 2004 with debts of €300 million.
– International financial
institutions are now warning the Spanish government that the country is losing
its international competitiveness and productivity is declining. The current account deficit has widened to 7.5 percent
of GDP, the second largest in the world. The European Commission
forecasts it will increase to 9 percent in 2007, adding “these levels cannot be
sustained forever.”
Last
year, the government introduced its National Reform Programme, saying it would address Spain’s lacklustre productivity
performance and competitiveness. It plans to reduce corporate tax on large companies and personal
income tax, which predominantly favour the rich. At the same, the IMF says further labour reforms are
necessary. Under the
guise of reducing temporary contracts, it wants to reduce the dismissal costs
and other conditions associated with permanent contracts. The organisation has also pushed for
employers and trade unions to break up the national collective wage bargaining
system, institute company-based wage agreements, and promote greater
labour flexibility.
Spain’s
increasing inequality exposes as fraudulent the perennial claim that “economic
recovery” benefits everyone, even if unequally. The latest statistics
show that there has been an enormous transfer of wealth—from the working class
to the wealthy elite—in Spain
with the backing of both the PP and the PSOE, backed by the Stalinist-led
United Left (IU) and Catalan nationalists.
Copyright 1998-2006