The labor cost of Canary Islands companies increases by 4.5% in the first quarter

The labor cost of companies increased by 4.5% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2025, reaching 2,715.95 euros per worker per month in the Canary Islands, although it remained the second lowest in Spain, only above that of Extremadura, at 2,649.03 euros, according to data published this Tuesday by the INE.

Labor cost is everything it costs an organization to have an employee hired, both salary costs and mandatory Social Security contributions, dismissal severance pay, professional training, social benefits, or mutual insurance.

The archipelago was, however, the eighth autonomous community where said expense increased the most proportionally from January to March compared to the same months of the previous year, while the largest increases occurred in Cantabria (8.2%), Basque Country (7.1%), and Catalonia (6.1%), and the smallest in Asturias (1.8%), Balearic Islands (2.5%), and Andalusia (3.2%), according to the latest Quarterly Labor Cost Survey from the INE, the National Statistics Institute.

Which reveals that in all those regions, in any case, the average business expenditure per employee per month was higher than that of the archipelago, standing at 2,940.74 euros in Asturias, 3,282.44 in the Balearic Islands, and 2,775.84 in Andalusia.

In Spain as a whole, the monthly labor cost for companies per worker stood at an average of 3,278.01 euros in that quarter, an increase of 4.9% compared to a year ago.

In the Canary Islands, the salary cost per employee per month, excluding other expenses that are added to the salary itself such as Social Security contributions, was an average of 1,952.54 euros from January to March, registering an interannual increase of 4.3%.

That cost in the archipelago continued to be the second lowest in the country, being higher only than that of Extremadura, set at 1,923.49 euros, reveals the INE.

In the entire country, the salary cost per worker per month was an average of 2,403.80 euros, growing by 4.9% in relation to the first quarter of 2025.