In Poland, young workers are earning more than ever in real wages, but on the other side of Europe, in Spain, workers under 30 have seen wages stagnate for the last decade—even as the cost of living has exploded in the last three years.
This is according to the Global Youth Employment Trends Report 2024 from the UN’s International Labor Organization (OIT). Spanish workers “have not experienced any increase in their real monthly salary in the last decade,” the report states, and the most affected workers were those between the ages of 25 and 29.
The report found that salaries in Spain practically froze between 2013 and 2020, according to El Debate. During that same period, global inflation remained at a contained 3.2%, and in Spain, the inflation rate was far lower, with prices increasing not even 1% annually. Spain’s economy experienced a very poor growth during this time period, which is relevant for explaining the poor growth in wages.
The panorama changed drastically, though, in 2021 when global prices grew by 4.7%, according to the ILO “due to the shortage of raw materials,” and then spiked 8.7% in 2022 because of the “increase in energy prices after the start of the war in Ukraine.” Despite a slowdown in inflation in 2023 to 6.8%, the total increase in the price of goods and services over the last three years has reached an exorbitant 20.2% globally. In Spain, specifically, prices have spiked 16.12%.
Although the ILO report expects inflation to moderate to 5.9% globally in 2025, according to El Debate, “the rapid increase in prices in recent years, without the corresponding increase in nominal wages, has caused a fall in real wages in most G20” economies,” the report states. “This has led to a cost-of-living crisis, as well as the erosion of the standard of living of workers around the world.”.
Some countries, particularly lower-middle-income countries, have seen real wages significantly increase for young workers. Among these is Poland. The ILO report found that “in countries where there is a high demand for entry-level work and a limited supply of job seekers, the real salaries of young people should increase faster than those over 30.” This theory has proven true, according to the ILO, in countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Poland, Turkey, the United States, and Vietnam.
Compared to workers over 30, young workers in these countries saw their real wages increase. In 2022. In Vietnam, they were 40% higher in 2022 than in 2013 and 30% higher in Indonesia and Poland. Pakistan, Turkey, and the United States also have seen increases, in the case of the U.S., real wages have increased 20%.
The ILO attributes the decrease in the real salaries of young workers to “the overrepresentation of young workers in temporary and part-time work,” as well as “in certain types of economic sectors and in the informal economy.”
