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It may be the town with the most luxury villas, sleek yachts and top-end cars per capita in Andalucía, but the wages are not exactly generous in Marbella. The popular 'Golden Mile' town is near the bottom of the region's league table in terms of average salary: of the 13 municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants in Andalucía, Marbella has the second lowest average salary. In 2023 Marbella-based workers earned an average of 18,197 euros gross per year. If you divide this amount by 14 payments you get a monthly salary of 1,300 euros. Only Roquetas de Mar is below in this ranking at 16,797 euros per year. Malaga city is more than 3,000 euros above that figure at 21,314 euros and neither is it the Andalusian city with the best salaries. That position is occupied by Granada with 24,634 euros per annum. This is reflected in the publication of a salaries in Andalucía report, prepared by Andalucía's IECA institute of statistics and cartography with data gathered on an annual basis on working lives (the latest figures being for the year 2023).
This average salary is the result of taking all the salaries recorded by Marbella's workers in 2023 and dividing it by the total number of workers. So the figure has a downward bias, as there are many workers who do not work the full year (seasonal) or who work part-time. To find out what a worker's salary would be for a full year's work, the IECA provides an indicator called "annual full-time equivalent salary". Yet even in this ranking Marbella is second from the bottom of the list of large Andalusian municipalities at 25,222 euros per year. Roquetas de Mar also stays in last place with 23,167 euros and Granada in first with 30,833 euros per annum.
Why does this happen? There are many variables that determine wage differences: age, gender, seniority in the company, nationality. Still, there is one above all others that explains why Marbella is at the bottom of the salary scale in Andalucía: its high dependence on the services industry and, more specifically, on the hospitality and retail sectors, which are the second lowest paid sectors of all after agriculture. In the Golden Mile municipality, 47% of the workforce is employed in bars, restaurants and shops, with an average full-time salary of 23,026 euros per year. In the city with the highest average salary, Granada, the proportion of these two sectors is less than 26% of the employed population. In addition, a high percentage of Granada's working population is employed in the public sector (32%), which enjoys an average annual salary of close to 40,000 euros. Returning to Marbella, only 11% are public sector employees.
The higher seasonal nature of employment in Marbella due to fluctuating tourism over the year is also a factor in terms of wages. Marbella residents work on average 72% of the time it would take to work a full working day all year round, a percentage that rises to 80% in Granada.
Marbella is also the Andalusian municipality where the average salary increased the least in 2023: by only 3.2%, while the average increase in Andalucía was 6.3%, thus almost double.
Malaga city is not particularly well placed in this ranking by municipality either, although as a province it does top the Andalusian salary ranking. The largest municipality with the highest average salary in the region is, as already mentioned, Granada, followed by Algeciras, Seville, Cadiz, Dos Hermanas, Cordoba and Jaen. With Malaga in eighth position with its 21,314 euros per year, it is followed by Huelva, Jerez de la Frontera, Marbella and Roquetas de Mar. However, for Malaga city there is a salary increase in line with the Andalusian average: 6.3% up on 2022.
If the magnifying glass is extended to the medium-sized municipalities (those with more than 50,000 inhabitants), the ranking in Malaga province is once again led by Rincón de la Victoria, with 23,867 euros gross per year. The rest are in the following order: Alhaurín de la Torre, Rincón de la Victoria, Malaga city, Torremolinos, Benalmádena, Fuengirola, Antequera, Estepona, Marbella, Mijas and, finally, Vélez-Málaga, with 17,758 euros, which represents 26% less than the average income of a worker living in Rincón.
In terms of the regional focus of these data, the consolidation of Malaga as the Andalusian province with the highest average salary stands out after it managed to overtake Seville in 2022. In 2023 Malaga residents earned an average gross annual salary of 19,448 euros, 49 euros more than those in Seville. Behind them are Cadiz, Granada, Cordoba, Almeria, Jaen and Huelva. The average salary in Malaga rose by 6.39% in 2023, slightly above the Andalusian average of 6.32%.
The average salary is, in reality, only telling half the story as it hides large differences due to many variables: age, gender, the sector in which you work, nationality and so on. To begin with, the wage gap between men and women still exists: a woman in Malaga earns 3,774 euros less on average per year than her male colleague. This difference can be due to the lower number of hours worked by women and the higher incidence of women in part-time work. Still, this is not the only explanation, as for the same number of hours worked there is still a gap of 1,996 euros in favour of men. The two main causes are that women are more present in low-pay work (such as cleaning, catering, retail or as care-givers) and their presence in technical and managerial positions is nowhere near the same as that of men.
By sector the lowest paid workers are in agriculture (annual salary average of 7,333 euros) and the best paid are in public services where they reach an average of 28,400 euros. The second sector with the second highest average salary in Malaga is industry at just over 23,063 euros per year. The group of "other sectors" that are above average (almost 20,000 euros per year) includes financial or technological services, among others. Then below the average are construction (17,934 euros) and retail and hospitality (15,296 euros).
If full-time equivalent salaries are compared, there are still big differences: Malaga's agricultural workers would earn an average of 18,971 euros per year for a full year's work, just over half of what those in the public sector earn (33,349 euros). Those in industry (the second highest paid sector) earn around 28,000 euros per year, compared to less than 23,000 euros in the hospitality and retail sectors.
Age is another very important factor when comparing salaries in Malaga. The equation in this case is very clear: the more years clocked up, the higher the salary in the bank. The salary earned by those under 30 years of age (10,671 euros) is half that of those over 60 (22,479). If what is compared is the full-time equivalent annual salary (so, comparing salaries for equal time worked), there is still a big gap: those under 30 would receive 21,362 euros for a full year's work and those over 60 would be paid 28,999 euros.
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