Minimum Wage Raised in Spain as of Today

[Darren]

MADRID — Spain's socialist government approved Wednesday a 1.5 percent increase in the national minimum wage to 633.3 euros (911.2 dollars) from 624 euros a month during its last cabinet meeting of the year.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero promised during the last general election campaign in 2008 to raise the minimum wage to 800 euros by 2012 if his Socialist Party was re-elected for a second term.

Spain, along with Portugal, Greece and the the new members of the European Union in central and eastern Europe has one of the lowest minimum wages in the 27-nation bloc.

Source: AFP: Spain increases minimum wage

[Spanish Consultas]

Spain has very disparate incomes and costs of living. Raising the minimum wage to 800€ would surely be a big help to rural workers, especially seasonal and migrant workers. On the other hand, in larger industrial centres like Barcelona, Madrid or Bilbao it won't make any difference because wages for even the most menial jobs are already far above the minimum, otherwise it would be impossible to live in these cities.

It's a nice electoral ploy, but in my opinion what is really needed in Spain is economic diversification away from the mainstays of tourism and real estate and serious investment in research and development, as well as an end to rampant corruption and nepotism. This is a country with a lot of potential, unfortunately its best and brightest tend to head to UK, US, Germany or Japan for lack of opportunities at home and a lot of vested interests have no desire to change the economic and social model which has allowed them to prosper and basically dominate the country.

[Darren]

It's a nice electoral ploy, but in my opinion what is really needed in Spain is economic diversification away from the mainstays of tourism and real estate and serious investment in research and development, as well as an end to rampant corruption and nepotism. This is a country with a lot of potential, unfortunately its best and brightest tend to head to UK, US, Germany or Japan for lack of opportunities at home and a lot of vested interests have no desire to change the economic and social model which has allowed them to prosper and basically dominate the country.

Well you could say that but the UK is in a bad way also as we have a saying here that "The UK has become a country of financial advisers" and now that the bottom has fallen out of the banking/money markets the UK is on its knees.

It's the worst recession in the UK since the 1930's depression or something and it's not really getting any notably better and one has to ask themselves how will it as if we are a country based on the financial markets and there are none left to speak of and with the UK Gov now doing their up most to push the highest payers out of the country by one off taxing their bonuses then where do you go from there? It's all very confusing and worrying for both countries to where we both come out of it the other side and in what condition!

At least we don't have the level of low-mid level government corruption that allegedly goes on in Spain!