Salaries agreed through collective agreements renewed in Canarias during the first half of the year have surpassed the increase in the cost of living. The average increase signed in these labor agreements reached 2.96%, remaining above the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 2.1%.
This increase benefits 116,276 workers in the Archipelago. However, recent geopolitical tension in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz raises fears of a possible inflationary crisis, with forecasts suggesting that Canary Islands workers may experience a loss of purchasing power this year.
It should be noted that not all employed individuals benefit from these raises, and many already had increases agreed upon in previous modifications of their labor agreements. Nevertheless, the increase signed in agreements serves as an indicator of the labor market's health. Although this year marks another period where salary growth outpaces inflation, the agreed-upon increases are more moderate than in previous years.
In 2025, salary increases in Canarias approached 5% compared to 2.8% inflation, resulting in a gain of over two percentage points in purchasing power for 207,987 workers. In 2024, the agreed-upon raise was 3.08%, and the CPI grew by 2.2%, leading to an increase in purchasing capacity of about eight tenths of a point. 2024 was the first year after the pandemic that workers regained purchasing power, as in 2023, 2022, and 2021, prices rose more than salaries due to the inflationary crisis and the pandemic.
Despite salary increases in recent years, the cost of living has risen more sharply. From 2022 to the present, salaries have grown by 13.8%, while the cost of living has climbed by 15.7%. Comparing from 2016 to the first quarter of 2026, salaries have increased by 26.5%, but prices have risen by 32.1%, resulting in a loss of over five percentage points in purchasing power over a decade for Canary Islanders.
Essential expenses such as housing, food, energy, and leisure have experienced significant increases, eroding the purchasing power of Canary Islands households.
