Antoni Canetethe president of pimechas confirmed in the general assembly of Barcelona today, Tuesday May 9, that the closures of SMEs increased by 10%and that in the case of Catalonia they increased to the same level, in 2022. The president of the employers’ association has affirmed the closure of some 26,000 SMEs in Spain warning unions not to give a “generalized” message that all companies had “extraordinary” profits in 2022.
The loss of margin, the increase in debt or the increase in costs are some of the factors that he has wielded canete to explain the increase in business closures.
canete has denounced that, despite the fact that the unions publicly denounced the past First of May the “absolutely extraordinary profits” of companies in 2022, “this is not the case of SMEs”, for which reason he has asked that all companies not be put “in the same bag”.
canete He has commented that in the case of some sectors, such as commerce or the agricultural sector, the margins have become so stressed that the situation of some companies has become unfeasible.
The leader of pimec has ensured that although the National Statistics Institute (INE) reflects an increase in gross profit of 15% in 2022 in companies, when the result is disaggregated it can be seen that companies in the ibex increased their profits by 35% and that instead “many SMEs are at the level of profits of 2019” and with higher debt than they had then due to the pandemic. Thus, canete He has asked unions for “rigor and seriousness” in their messages on business benefits.
canete has specified that this union message without distinction between SMEs and large companies, launched to demand salary increases important in order to deal with inflation, has generated “a lot of indignation” among Catalan SMEs.
“We want to pay the highest possible salaries,” he said. canetebut he has asked for more territorial flexibility with the agreements and indexing salary increases to concepts such as productivity.
