Corporate Absenteeism: The Hidden Cost of Labor and Greedflation in Spain

• According to the CCOO Economic Cabinet, "absenteeism" in Spain is largely a corporate phenomenon where employers fail to pay for hours worked or honor labor conditions, rather than employees missing work.
• 436,000 workers perform 2.54 million hours of unpaid overtime weekly, representing an estimated €3.378 billion in lost wages and social security contributions annually.
• Between 2019 and 2025, real value-added grew by 21%, business margins increased by 30%, while the total wage bill grew by only 13%.

Corporate Malpractice

• Beyond unpaid overtime, systemic abuses include:
  • Part-time contracts masking full-time schedules.
  • False self-employment status for dependent workers.
  • Downgrading professional categories and absorbing wage supplements to neutralize minimum wage hikes.
  • Digital availability demands outside working hours.

Greedflation and Profit Margins

• Inflation has been driven significantly by "greedflation," where companies set prices above costs to boost margins.
• In the food retail sector, the operating margin rose from 4.95% in 2023 to 6.79% in 2025, with major supermarket chains reporting record net profits.
• Prices have remained high despite the cooling of energy and raw material costs that initially triggered inflation.

Fiscal Evasion and Housing

• The effective corporate tax rate remains at a meager 12.1%, far below the 25% nominal rate, with banking groups paying as little as 2.1%.
• SOCIMIs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) benefit from 0% tax rates in corporate income tax, exacerbating rent extraction from working-class wages.

Proposed Policy Reforms

• Implementation of an objective, digital, and verifiable time-tracking system for labor inspectors.
• Integrating margin data from the AEAT (Tax Agency) observatory into collective bargaining negotiations.
• Establishing extraordinary taxes on excessive margins in large retail chains.
• Closing corporate tax loopholes and linking real estate tax advantages to verified social functions.