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UNDERSTANDING SPANIARDS

Why do so many Spaniards want to work for Mercadona supermarket?

Believe it or not, working in Spain's biggest supermarket chain is 'the dream' for thousands of Spaniards.

Published: 13 March 2024 09:50 CET
Updated: 17 March 2024 08:22 CET
Why do so many Spaniards want to work for Mercadona supermarket?
Mercadona has over 100,000 employees. (Photo by Thomas COEX / AFP)

If you live in Spain, it’s almost statistically impossible that you haven’t stepped foot in a Mercadona store – Spain’s biggest supermarket chain.

They are everywhere, with 1,619 stories across Spain and another 49 in Portugal. That means it needs a lot of employees, and in 2023 Mercadona reached a new milestone, crossing the threshold of 100,000 members of staff.

The chain has 104,000 employees in total, 98,700 in Spain and 5,300 in Portugal, having created 5,000 jobs in the last financial year alone.

Many more thousands of Spaniards would love a job there. Though for some readers from other countries the idea of aspiring to work in a supermarket might strike them as not being very ambitious, the reality is that many people in Spain, including recent university graduates, have it as their primary employment goal.

So why is that?

Compared to other Spanish companies, and the somewhat unpredictable, lowly paid labour market in Spain, jobs at Mercadona offer stable employment with above average salaries.

In 2023 the company boosted both basic salary and the existing bonus structure with increases in line with the CPI, meaning the Mercadona minimum salary now stands at €1,553 gross per month, a not insignificant 17 percent higher than the Spain’s Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI).

The company also offers career progression to its employees. In 2023, Mercadona spent €110 million on training programmes for its staff, which resulted in more than 3.4 million hours of training. A total of 2,221 workers were promoted to positions of greater responsibility.

Surveys of recent university graduates in Spain show that Mercadona consistently comes out on top as the most desired employer.

READ ALSO: Ten unique jobs you can only do in Spain

According to data from the 4th edition of ‘Merco Talento Universitario España‘, the supermarket is thought of as the most attractive company to work for in Spain, followed by Inditex, Google, Amazon, Santander, Coca-Cola, Apple, Microsoft, Ikea and BBVA.

Of other well known Spanish and European brands and companies, six more appeared in the top 100: El Corte Inglés (15th), Decathlon (26th), Carrefour (34th), Mango (42nd), Leroy Merlin (43rd) and Lidl (49th).

Another factor that attracts many Spaniards to Mercadona is the incremental pay rises you get the longer you stay. So not only is the job stable, something sadly in short supply in Spain, but the pay goes up year by year, usually by around an average of €100 more per month for every year worked.

It’s this stability and steady pay rises that attract workers and keep them loyal.

But it’s not just young graduates, older Spaniards also dream of working at Mercadona. Looking at the demographic breakdown of the Mercadona workforce, the highest percentage of people (39 percent) are aged between 40 and 49, with 29 percent aged between 30 and 39.

Sixteen percent are over 50 and another 16 percent are young people aged up to 29. The vast majority of the workforce (82 percent) work in store, 12 percent in logistics and the remaining 6 percent in office jobs. 61 percent of the workforce is female.

This phenomenon of apparent conformism and desire for a pretty bog-standard job is not unlike the desire thousands of Spaniards have for becoming civil servants, funcionarios. In both cases, it says a lot about what Spaniards value when it comes to work. 

READ ALSO: Why so many people in Spain ‘dream’ of becoming civil servants

Member comments

  1. This is interesting however I have heard anecdotally that Mercadona refuses to hire people of colour and the corporate bosses have a “whites only” policy – does anyone know if there is any truth in this? Many of my friends here in Barcelona boycott the store for that reason. Would any of the journalists at the Local be able to find out if this is true?

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AMERICANS IN SPAIN

EXCLUSIVE: What the new Spain-US social security deal means for Americans

The Local speaks to the Spanish government and tax experts to understand what the new social security and pensions agreement between the United States and Spain means for American workers, digital nomads and pensioners in Spain.

Published: 15 May 2024 11:10 CEST
Updated: 19 May 2024 08:20 CEST
EXCLUSIVE: What the new Spain-US social security deal means for Americans

In early April, the United States and Spain announced a new social security and pension agreement.

The first update to the bilateral agreement between the two countries since 1986 was announced by US Ambassador to Spain, Julissa Reynoso, and Spain’s Minister of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, Elma Saiz.

The official agreement is unpublished so The Local spoke with a representative from Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration as well as international tax experts to understand the agreement in more detail.

Key aspects of the agreement

The Ministry told The Local Spain that the agreement is a step towards, bolstering mobility between Spain and the United States by improving pension calculations and social security protections.

The agreement has to do with the accumulation of benefits and affects working Americans living in Spain. There are two main components; the first affects which system people pay into (Spanish or American) and the second maximises the amount people can collect from social security.
 
Regarding paying into social security, the new agreement extends the “posting period” from three years to five years, with the possibility of extending it to seven years.

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This is meaningful for US employees who are working in Spain and means that they can now pay into the US social security system, rather than the Spanish social security system for longer.

Whereas the employee contributions in Spain and the United States are similar, 6.4 percent in Spain and 6.2 percent in the United States, the rate that employers pay differs greatly. In the United States the employer pays 6.2 percent into social security, whereas in Spain they pay 31 percent.
 
Why does this matter? “Previously when Americans moved to Spain, US employers were cutting the amount that they paid in salary because the cost of employment went up so much”, Louis Williams, Co-Founder and CEO of Entre Trámites, told The Local Spain.

It’s also made employers hesitant to grant digital nomads an Employer of Record (EOR) which would allow American workers to be on a Spanish contract.

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In terms of collecting benefits, the representative from Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration says, “In the calculation of the Spanish pension there have been technical modifications that will benefit especially those people who developed their last working life in the United States, without this harming those who have worked in Spain immediately before requesting the benefit.”

In other words, under the new agreement, after calculating a person’s benefits under each country’s system, the recipient will be awarded the most beneficial of those two calculations.

Impacts for self-employed workers and digital nomads

According to the Ministry, “The agreement allows self-employed workers to temporarily move to the other State while maintaining their legislation, a possibility that was previously restricted only to employed workers.”
 
This has big implications for people who avoid moving to Spain because of the complicated social security contributions scheme, as they’ll now be able to continue paying US social security taxes (rather than Spanish) for up to seven years.
 
“The interesting thing is if this is extended to digital nomads because it would make the digital nomad visa more attractive,” says Williams.

“Why? Because if you’re posted by an employer (who can now avoid high Spanish social security taxes) you’re eligible for Beckham’s Law.” The law, which does not extend to autonomous works, can cap tax liabilities at 24 percent.
 
Being posted could make life much simpler, according to Elliott Locke, ACSI, co-founder of abroaden, a financial wellbeing and education start-up for people living abroad headquartered in Barcelona.

“The calculus is harder for freelancers given the different legal structures and methods for freelancing between the two countries. In many ways, if an American moves here to work remotely, it could be beneficial for them to have their US-based employer hire them on a local contract through an employer-of-record,” Locke told The Local.
 
In short, the new agreement could make it more attractive for U.S. companies to post employees in Spain, making them eligible for Beckham’s law and allowing autonomous workers to pay into the U.S. social security system, making it more beneficial and easier to be a digital nomad in Spain.

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Who benefits from the new agreement?
 
The people who will feel this new agreement the most are employers, digital nomads, retirees who have paid into both systems over the years, and finally, civil servants. “Spain has incorporated as possible beneficiaries of the Agreement those people who have contributed to the civil servant’s regime (passive class regime), who were excluded in the previous Agreement,” says the Ministry.
 
When can we expect the new agreement to come into force?

Don’t hold your breath; this is Spain after all, but we can expect the agreement to come into force within the next two years.

The deal has to pass through Congress before approval, which is likely why it has not yet been published. If things move quickly, people could expect to benefit within a year.

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