Overview
- The Informe Fènix, which was presented Friday at the Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya, argues that jobs paying under €27,500 a year do not cover the public services their workers use and leave a net cost for taxpayers.
- The authors quantify implicit aid of €6 per night in a three‑star coastal hotel with 80% of the benefit going to foreign tourists, €0.70 per kilogram in pork processing with 75% consumed outside Catalonia, and about €3 per urban delivery for riders.
- Between 2008 and 2023, 52% of net new jobs came in sectors below the Catalan average wage of €34,950, and 44% were in what the report calls highly subsidized jobs under €27,500.
- Despite total GDP growing faster than the EU, Catalonia’s GDP per person fell 12 points versus the EU average over 25 years, while productivity per hour slid from 92% to 87% of the EU level.
- The report urges raising VAT on tourism, cutting tourist capacity below peak demand, ending fixed‑discontinuous contracts, lifting the minimum wage until low‑skill job growth stops, revising special corporate tax regimes, and using skills‑based immigration.